• Now Or Never: The Great 'Transition' Must Be Imposed
  Now Or Never: The Great ‘Transition’ Must Be Imposed

  Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  A new wave of restrictions, more lockdowns, and – eventually – trillions of dollars in new stimmie cheques may be in prospect…

  

  Were you following the news this last week? Vaccine mandates are everywhere: one country, after another, is doubling-down, to try to force, or legally compel, full population vaccination. The mandates are coming because of the massive uptick in Covid – most of all in the places where the experimental mRNA gene therapies were deployed en masse. And (no coincidence), this ‘marker’ has come just as U.S. Covid deaths in 2021 have surpassed those of 2020. This has happened, despite the fact that last year, no Americans were vaccinated (and this year 59% are vaccinated). Clearly no panacea, this mRNA ‘surge’.

  Of course, the Pharma-Establishment know that the vaccines are no panacea. There are ‘higher interests’ at play here. It is driven rather by fear that the window for implementing its series of ‘transitions’ in the U.S. and Europe is closing. Biden still struggles to move his ‘Go-Big’ social spending plan and green agenda transition through Congress by the midterm election in a year’s time. And the inflation spike may well sink Biden’s Build Back Better agenda (BBB) altogether.

  Time is short. The midterm elections are but 12 months away, after which the legislative window shuts. The Green ‘transition’ is stuck too (by concerns that moving too fast to renewables is putting power grids at risk and elevating heating costs unduly), and the Pharma establishment will be aware that a new B.1.1.529 variant has made a big jump in evolution with 32 mutations to its spike protein. This makes it “clearly very different” from previous variants, which may drive further waves of infection evading ‘vaccine defences’.

  Translation: a new wave of restrictions, more lockdowns, and – eventually – trillions of dollars in new stimmie cheques may be in prospect. And what of inflation then, we might ask.

  It’s a race for the U.S. and Europe, where the pandemic is back in full force across Europe, to push through their re-set agendas, before variants seize up matters with hospitals crowded with the vaccinated and non-vaccinated; with riots in the streets, and mask mandates at Christmas markets (that’s if they open at all). A big reversal was foreshadowed by this week’s news: vaccine mandates and lockdowns, even in highly vaccinated areas, are returning. And people don’t like it.

  The window for the Re-Set may be fast closing. One observer, noting all the frenetic Élite activity, has asked ‘have we finally reached peak Davos?’. Is the turn to authoritarianism in Europe a sign of desperation as fears grow that the various ‘transitions’ planned under the ‘re-set’ umbrella (financial, climate, vaccine and managerial expert technocracy) may never be implemented?

  Cut short rather, as spending plans are hobbled by accelerating inflation; as the climate transition fails to find traction amongst poorer states (and at home, too); as technocracy is increasingly discredited by adverse pandemic outcomes; and Modern Monetary Theory hits a wall, because – well, inflation again.

  Are you paying attention yet? The great ‘transition’ is conceived as a hugely expensive shift towards renewables, and to a new digitalised, roboticised corporatism. It requires Big (inflationary) funding to be voted through, and a huge parallel (inflationary) expenditure on social support to be approved by Congress as well. The social provision is required to mollify all those who subsequently will find themselves without jobs, because of the climate ‘transition’ and the shift to a digitalised corporate sphere. But – unexpectedly for some ‘experts’ – inflation has struck – the highest statistics in 30 years.

  There are powerful oligarchic interests behind the Re-Set. They do not want to see it go down, nor see the West eclipsed by its ‘competitors’. So it seems that rather than back off, they will go full throttle and try to impose compliance on their electorates: tolerate no dissidence.

  A 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless” by then dissident and future Czech President Vaclav Havel begins mockingly that, “A SPECTRE is haunting Eastern Europe: the spectre of what in the West is called ‘dissent’”. “This spectre has not appeared out of thin air. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of the present historical phase of the system it is haunting.” Well, today, as Michael Every of Rabobank notes, “the West has polarisation, mass protests, riots, talk of obligatory vaccinations in Europe, and Yanis Varoufakis arguing capitalism is already dead; and that a techno-feudalism looms”. Now, prompting even greater urgency, are the looming U.S. midterms. Trump’s return (even if confined just to Congress), would cut the legs from under BBB, and ice-up Brussels too.

  It was however, precisely this tech revolution, to which Varoufakis calls attention, that both re-defined the Democrat constituency, and turned tech oligarchs into billionaires. Through algorithmically creating a magnetism of like-minded content, cascaded out to its customers, it has both smothered intellectual curiosity, and created the ‘un-informed party’, which is the today’s Managerial Class – the party of the credentialed meritocracy; the party, above all, smugly seeing themselves as the coming era’s ‘winners’ – unwilling to risk a look behind the curtain; to put their ‘safe space’ to the test.

  Perversely, this cadre of professionally-corralled academics, analysts, and central bankers, all insist that they completely believe in their memes: That their techno-approach is both effective, and of benefit to humanity – oblivious to the dissenting views, swirling around them, down in the interstices of the internet.

  The main function then of such memes today, whether issued by the Pharma Vaccine ‘Command’; the MMT ‘transition’ Command; the energy ‘transition’ Command; or the global managerial technocracy ‘transition’, is to draw a ‘Maginot line’ – a defensive ideological boundary, a “Great Narrative” as it were – between ‘the truth’ as defined by the ruling classes, and with that of any other ‘truth’ that contradicts their narrative. That is to say, it is about compliance.

  It was well understood that all these transitions would overturn long-standing human ways of life, that are ancient and deeply rooted and trigger dissidence – which is why new forms of social ‘discipline’ would be required. (Incidentally, the EU leadership already refer to their their official mandates as ‘Commands’). Such disciplines are now being trialled in Europe – with the vaccine mandates (even though scientists are telling them that vaccines cannot be the silver bullet for which they yearn). As one high ‘lodge’ member, favouring a form of global governance notes, to make people accept such reforms, you must frighten them.

  Yes, the collective of ‘transitions’ must have their ‘Big, overarching Narrative’ – however hollow, it rings (i.e. the struggle to defend democracy against authoritarianism). But it is the nature of today’s cultural-meme war that ultimately its content becomes little more than a rhetorical shell, lacking all sincerity at its core.

  It serves principally, as decoration to a ‘higher order’ project: The preservation of global ‘rules of the road’, framed to reflect U.S. and allied interests, as the base from which the clutch of ‘transitions’ can be raised up into a globally managed order which preserves the Élite’s influence and command of major assets.

  This politics of crafted, credentialised meme-politics is here to stay, and now is ‘everywhere’. It has long crossed the partisan divide. The wider point here – is that the mechanics of meme-mobilisation is being projected, not just in the western ‘home’ (at a micro-level), but abroad, into American ‘foreign policy’ too (i.e. at the macro-level).

  And, just as in the domestic arena, where the notion of politics by suasion is lost (with vaccine mandates enforced by water-cannon, and riot police), so too, the notion of foreign policy managed through argument, or diplomacy, has been lost too.

  Western foreign policy becomes less about geo-strategy, but rather is primordially focussed on the three ‘big iconic issues’ – China, Russia and Iran – that can be given an emotional ‘charge’ in order to profitably mobilise certain identified ‘constituencies’ in the U.S. domestic cultural war. All the various U.S. political strands play this game.

  The aim is to ‘nudge’ domestic American psyches (and those of their allies) into mobilisation on some issue (such as more protectionism for business against Chinese competition), or alternatively, imagined darkly, in order to de-legitimise an opposition, or to justify failures. These mobilisations are geared to gaining relative domestic partisan advantage, rather than having strategic purpose.

  When this credentialled meme-war took hold in the U.S., millions of people were already living a reality in which facts no longer mattered at all; where things that never happened officially, happened. And other things that obviously happened never happened: not officially, that is. Or, were “far-right extremist conspiracy theories,” “fake news,” or “disinformation,” or whatever, despite the fact that people knew that they weren’t.

  Russia and China therefore face a reality in which European and U.S. élites are heading in the opposite direction to epistemological purity and well-founded argument. That is to suggest, the new ‘normal’ is about generating a lot of contradictory realities, not just contradictory ideologies, but actual mutually-exclusive ‘realities’, which could not possibly simultaneously exist … and which are intended to bemuse adversaries – and nudge them off-balance.

  This is a highly risky game, for it forces a resistance stance on those targeted states – whether they seek it, or not. It underlines that politics is no more about considered strategy: It is about being willing for the U.S. to lose strategically (even militarily), in order to win politically. Which is to say gaining an ephemeral win of having prompted an favourable unconscious psychic response amongst American voters.

  Russia, China, Iran are but ‘images’ prized mainly for their potential for being loaded with ‘nudge’ emotional-charge in this western cultural war, (of which these states are no part). The result is that these states become antagonists to the American presumption to define a global ‘rules of the road’ to which all must adhere.

  These countries understand exactly the point of these value and rights-loaded ‘rules’. It is to force compliance on these states to acquiesce to the ‘transitions, or, to suffer isolation, boycott and sanction – in a similar way to the choices being forced on those in the West not wishing to vaccinate (i.e. no jab; no job).

  This approach reflects an attempt by Team Biden to have it ‘both ways’ with these three ‘Iconic States’: To welcome compliance on ‘transition issues’, but to be adversarial over any dissidence to mounting a rules framework that can raise the ‘transitions’ from the national, to the supra-national plane.

  But do the U.S. practitioners of meme-politics, absorb and comprehend that the stance by Russia-China – in riposte – is not some same-ilk counter-mobilisation done to ‘make a point’? That their vision does stand at variance with ‘the rules’? Do they see that their ‘red lines’ may indeed be ‘red lines’ literally? Is the West now so meme-addicted, it cannot any longer recognise real national interests?

  This is key: When the West speaks, it is forever looking over its shoulder, at the domestic, and wider psychic impact when it is ‘making a point’ (such as practicing attacks by nuclear-capable bombers as close to Russia’s borders as they dare). And that when Russia and China say, ‘This is our Red Line’, it is no meme – they really mean it.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 23:30

• Putin Denounces Ukraine's Use Of Turkish Drones In Erdogan Call
  Putin Denounces Ukraine’s Use Of Turkish Drones In Erdogan Call

  In a Friday phone call Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan that Ukraine is using Turkish-made drones against pro-Russia separatists in the war-torn Donbass region. Putin put the Turkish leader on notice over the “destabilizing” activity of the continued drone transfers from Turkey to Ukraine.

  Putin further denounced the Turkish drone usage as “destructive” and “provocative” behavior on the part of Ukrainian authorities, citing specifically that Turkish-made Bayraktar drones have increasingly turned up in the conflict. Putin is reportedly also angry that the Turkey-to-Ukraine drone and weapons pipeline is still open and going strong, according to new reports.

  

  A spokesperson for Erdogan later confirmed that the drone issue was raised, but gave no further details. A follow-up statement from Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, however, rejected the notion that Turkey can be held responsible for the Ukrainian military’s deployment of Turkish-made drones.

  Further at issue is that recent drone sales from Turkey have been found to be much bigger than previously disclosed, outraging the Kremlin:

  Turkey has sold Ukraine significantly more of the armed drones that drew a rebuke from Russia than previously disclosed, with further deals in the pipeline, Bloomberg reported. 

  Baykar, an arms manufacturer based in Istanbul, has sold dozens of drones to Ukraine since 2019, together with control stations and missiles, according to several officials and an executive at a Turkish defense company with close government ties. Orders for at least two dozen more drones are under way, the people said, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject. 

  As Reuters reviews, Turkish drones have recently become featured in a flair-up of fighting:

  In October, Russia accused Ukraine of destabilizing the situation after government forces used a Bayraktar TB2 drone to strike a position controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

  Ukraine used the Bayraktar drone “for one tidy shot” at a gun system, and since then enemy soldiers are afraid of doing duty at such systems as they understand “how this could end,” Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Friday.

  We noted in late October that Russia began intensely investigating recent reports of Turkish attack drones being deployed for the first time in Ukraine’s eight-year civil war. The Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) under the command of the Kiev government claimed that the drones were used at that time in combat against ethnic Russian rebels.

  #Ukraine tests Turkey-made Bayraktar TB2 attack drones in the Sea Breeze-2021 military exercises. The drones are armed with MAM-C guided munitions. pic.twitter.com/fYcRz9gdNJ

  — Ali Özkök (@Ozkok_A) June 30, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  And the now confirmed Turkish drone deployments mark a dramatic escalation in the smoldering war, as it marks the involvement of NATO member Turkey in the conflict. Up to now, the United States and other NATO states have been supplying lethal weaponry through Kiev to prosecute its war against the breakaway self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

  Over the past year as reports started to surface, Moscow began suggesting it could sever all military level relations and cooperation with Turkey. Turkey, for example, relies on Russia for technical support for the S-400 anti-air missile defense systems supplied a couple years ago. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 23:00

• US Companies Are "Hostages" To China
  US Companies Are “Hostages” To China

  Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times,

  Foreign firms doing business in China should be aware of the costs of transacting with a totalitarian regime that controls everything in society and can easily bend any company to its will.

  

  Heads of U.S. corporations don’t dare to criticize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) even in private settings. They know Big Brother is always watching them.

  JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon’s quick apology over a joke he made recently about the country’s communist regime provides a good example of how business leaders fear retribution from Beijing.

  Clyde Prestowitz, author and strategist on Asia and globalization, explains the true cost of doing business in China in his latest book “The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership.” He was a presidential advisor and a leader of the first American trade mission to China in 1982.

  The U.S. companies that are highly coupled with China face all kinds of risks, from intellectual property theft to commercial cyber espionage. But the biggest, most fundamental risk is “the loss of free speech,” Prestowitz says in his book.

  Dimon is not alone as there are many examples of free-world CEOs and presidents making apologies or backtracking when they anger the Chinese regime.

  During Hong Kong protests in 2019, for example, Apple pulled from its app store a map application widely used by pro-democracy protestors that showed the location of police patrols and tear gas deployments, citing security reasons. The move was made after Chinese state media piled pressure calling for the app’s removal. Google also sparked controversy when it removed a Hong Kong protest role-playing game from its app store.

  These are by no means the only apparently self-censorship incidents by U.S tech companies. Apple, for example, removed nearly 55,000 active apps from its app store in China since 2017, according to a New York Times report. They include apps made by minorities oppressed by the regime, including Uyghurs and Tibetans.

  Over the years, the list of entities that have caved to Beijing’s censorship demands has grown long. The Gap, Disney, Delta Airlines, Medtronic, Marriott, the NBA, and many others have all bowed to the Chinese regime over issues ranging from Taiwan to Uyghurs to Hong Kong.

  Such actions by U.S. firms, though, have drawn criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who accuse companies of sacrificing American values for the allure of profits in the world’s second-largest economy.

  For the CEO of Apple Tim Cook and other U.S. corporate executives navigating the Chinese market, they effectively become “hostages” to the whims of the Chinese regime.

  “They may be perceived as the heads of American companies, but they fear Beijing far more than they fear Washington,” Prestowitz writes in his book.

  Since there’s no rule of law in China, they become “captive,” he adds. In Washington, they have lawyers and lobbyists that give them the power to influence or sue the U.S. government. In Beijing, however, they can’t sue the Chinese regime because they know they would lose—the courts in China are controlled by the Communist Party—and would face retaliation from the regime for even trying.

  Beijing is aware of this leverage and hence can freely use companies as a tool. As I wrote in a previous column, the Chinese Embassy in Washington is pressuring U.S. companies and trade groups that have business interests in China to lobby against a comprehensive China bill that aims to enhance U.S. competitiveness and hold Beijing accountable for its human rights abuses.

  According to Prestowitz, entities that are under pressure could be giants like Walmart, Apple, General Electric, and FedEx as well as organizations like the U.S.-China Business Council.

  None of this should come as a surprise. As The Epoch Times readers will know, China exerts significant influence in the United States. It spent more than $67 million on lobbyists last year, a sixfold increase since 2016, according to OpenSecrets.

  And this is only the tip of the iceberg, as it only covers the overt influence operations that need to be disclosed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

  The FARA, passed in 1938, requires a person who represents a foreign interest to register as a foreign agent. The law, however, falls short in addressing less overt political influence operations conducted through proxies, including corporations, trade associations, and think tanks. Many China hawks in Washington are urging Congress to close this loophole in foreign influence.

  “It’s really something that must be addressed,” Prestowitz tells me.

  If heads of corporations have substantial business operations in China, “they should not be allowed to make political donations in the United States,” he said.

  “When they testify before Congress, they should be compelled to declare that they are testifying as the leaders of Chinese businesses. They should be made to tell the public and the Congress that they in fact, are subject to pressure and influence by the Chinese Communist Party.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 22:30

• Goldman Senior Executives Are Searching For Ways To Quietly Boost Their Own Pay
  Goldman Senior Executives Are Searching For Ways To Quietly Boost Their Own Pay

  What’s good for the gander is good for the geese, right?

  It seems that way at Goldman Sachs. No sooner do we write about how Goldman Sachs is looking to implement additional paid leave for its rank-and-file employees in order to keep morale up than it was revealed that the company’s bosses are also looking at ways of improving their own yacht collection quality of life. 

  In fact, CEO David Solomon and the top brass at the bank are reportedly “searching for ways to juice their own eight-digit pay packages,” Bloomberg reported this week. 

  Solomon’s total stake in the company, including unvested stock, is worth about $180 million already the report says. He made $27.5 million his first full year as CEO and the same the next year, in 2020. Solomon also was given a $50 million bonus plan to be split with another employee in October of this year. That off-cycle bonus came as a result of Goldman’s skyrocketing stock price, which is up about 80% since Solomon took over as CEO. 

  Pat Scanlan, a spokesman for the bank, told Bloomberg: “We have offered co-investment opportunities for our senior executives that align interests with investors. That the board of directors would explore additional opportunities is hardly surprising.”

  One way that Solomon is pushing to boost pay is to expand the allocation of founders’ shares in SPAC deals that the bank partakes in. These requests have reportedly “irritated members of the SPAC team”, as it pins them against Solomon for a share of the projects that they have worked on.

  Teams at the bank are reportedly “scrambling to figure out how to structure and disclose the SPAC investment for the NEOs while avoiding the appearance of boosting pay.”

  

  The optics of bonuses when you’re already making tens of millions of dollars per year need to be carefully dealt with. While banks want to raise pay commensurate with other banks in order to retain talent, they have to walk a thin line with public perception. Bloomberg says that the key is to “give the board as much elbow room as possible to grant him more, without making it look like an outsized raise”.

  For example, when Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman surprised the market in 2020 by lowering his pay by about 7% due to the pandemic, it caused Goldman to delay its own decision on executive compensation for months.

  Top brass at Goldman has also reportedly looked at different ways to increase their share of profits from internal investment vehicles, including whether or not private funds operated by the firm’s merchant bank could pay larger bonuses for senior managers. 

  Recall, days ago we wrote how Goldman was also seeking to offer new incentives to its “burnt out” employees. 

  The investment bank is going to now be offering “paid leave for pregnancy loss” and is “expanding the amount of time employees can take for bereavement leave,” the report says.

  Goldman will also be offering unpaid sabbatical for its long time employees and removing a one year waiting period before matching employee 401(k) contributions.

  Goldman’s head of human resources, Bentley de Beyer, told the WSJ: “We wanted to offer a compelling value proposition to current and prospective employees, and wanted to make sure we’re leading, not just competing.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 22:00

• Shellenberger: The Real Threat To Banks Isn't From Climate Change, It's From Bankers
  Shellenberger: The Real Threat To Banks Isn’t From Climate Change, It’s From Bankers

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via substack,

  Over the last two years, some of the world’s most powerful and influential bankers and investors have argued that climate change poses a grave threat to financial markets and that nations must switch urgently from using fossil fuels to using renewables.

  In 2019, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco warned that climate change could cause banks to stop lending, towns to lose tax revenue, and home values to decline. Last year, 36 pension fund managers representing $1 trillion in assets said climate change “poses a systemic threat to financial markets and the real economy.”

  And upon taking office, President Joe Biden warned government agencies that climate change disasters threatened retirement funds, home prices, and the very stability of the financial system.

  But a major new staff report from the New York Federal Reserve Bank throws cold water on the over-heated rhetoric coming from activist investors, bankers, and politicians. “How Bad Are Weather Disasters for Banks?” asks the title of the report by three economists. “Not very,” they answer in the first sentence of the abstract.

  The reason is because “weather disasters over the last quarter century had insignificant or small effects on U.S. banks’ performance.” The study looked at FEMA-level disasters between 1995 and 2018, at county-level property damage estimates, and the impact on banking revenue.

  The New York Fed’s authors only looked at how banks have dealt with disasters in the past, and what they wrote isn’t likely to be the final word on the matter. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and most other scientific bodies predict that many weather events, including hurricanes and floods, which cause the greatest financial damage, are likely to become more extreme in the future, due to climate change.

  And in February, The New York Times quoted one of six United States Federal Reserve governors saying, “Financial institutions that do not put in place frameworks to measure, monitor and manage climate-related risks could face outsized losses on climate-sensitive assets caused by environmental shifts.”

  

  But the Fed economists looked separately at the most extreme 10 percent of all disasters and found that banks impacted not only didn’t suffer, “their income increases significantly with exposure,” and that the improved financial performance of banks hit by disasters wasn’t explained by increased federal disaster (FEMA) aid.

  In other words, disasters are actually good for banks, since they increase demand for loans. The larger a bank’s exposure to natural disasters, the larger its profits.

  Happily, the profits made by banks are trivial compared to rising societal resilience to disasters, which can be seen by the fact that the share of GDP spent on natural disasters has actually declined over the last 30 years.

  While scientists expect hurricanes to become five percent more extreme they also expect them to become 25 percent less frequent, and now, new data show global carbon emissions actually declined over the last decade, and thus there is no longer any serious risk of a significant rise in global temperatures.

  Banking Against Growth

  The real risk to banks and the global economy comes from climate policy, not climate change, particularly efforts to make energy more expensive and less reliable through the greater use of renewables, new taxes, and new regulations.

  “For policymakers,” warned the three economists writing for the New York Fed, “our findings suggest that potential transition risks from climate change warrant more attention than physical disaster risks.”

  While they may seem like outliers, they are far from alone in expressing their concern. The second half of the quote by the Fed governor about climate change, which was hyped by The New York Times, warned that banks “could face outsized losses” from the “transition to a low-carbon economy.” (My emphasis.)

  And, now concern is growing among members of Congress about the dangers of over-relying on weather-dependent energy, with some members citing the New York Fed’s report after The Wall Street Journal editorialized about it last week .

  Proof of the threat to the economy from climate policy is the worst global energy crisis in 50 years. Shareholder activists played a significant role in creating it, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg, and The Financial Times, by reducing investment in oil and gas production, and causing nations to over-invest in unreliable solar and wind energies, which has driven up energy prices, and contributed significantly to inflation.

  And yet a crucial Biden Administration nominee for bank regulation has openly said she would like to bankrupt firms that produce oil and gas, the two fuels whose scarcity is causing the global energy crisis. Progressive academic, Saule Omarova, nominated by Biden, said recently that “we want [oil and gas firms] to go bankrupt” and that “the way we basically get rid of these carbon financiers is we starve them of their source of capital.

  

  Biden nominee Saule Omarova said she wants to bankrupt energy companies

  Omarova is not an outlier. The Biden Administration’s Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) is advocating 30 new climate regulations that should be imposed on banking. Many analysts believe the US Securities and Exchange Commission will require new regulations. The goal is to radically alter how America’s banks lend money, the energy sector, and the economy as a whole.

  And former Bank of England chief, Mark Carney, co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, has organized $130 trillion in investment and said recently that his investors should expect to make higher, not lower, returns than the market. How? In the exact same way Omarova predicted: by bankrupting some companies, and financing other ones, through government regulations and subsidies.

  

  Former Bank of England head Mark Carney

  Carney created the Glasgow Financial Alliance, or GFANZ, with Michael Bloomberg, and they did so under the official seal of the United Nations. “Carney said the alliance will put global finance on a trajectory that ultimately leaves high-carbon assets facing a much bleaker future,” wrote a reporter with Bloomberg. “He also said investors in such products will see the value of their holdings sink.”

  What’s going on, exactly? How is it that some of the world’s most powerful bankers, and the politicians they finance, came to support policies that threaten the stability of electrical grids, energy supplies, and thus the global economy itself?

  The Unseen Order

  Three of the largest donors to climate change causes are billionaire financial titans Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, and Tom Steyer, all of whom have significant investments in both renewables and fossil fuels.

  

  Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, and George Soros

  Soros is worth $8 billion and recently made large investments in natural gas firms (EQT) and electric vehicles (Fisker), Bloomberg has a net worth of around $70 billion and has large investments in natural gas and renewables, and much of Steyer’s wealth derives from investments in all three main fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas — as well as renewables.

  All three men finance climate activists and politicians, including President Biden, who then seek policies — from $500 billion for renewables and electric vehicles over the next decade to federal control over state energy systems to banking regulations to bankrupt oil and gas companies — which would benefit each of them personally.

  Bloomberg gave over $100 million to Sierra Club to lobby to shut down coal plants after he had taken a large stake in its replacement, natural gas, and operates one of the largest news media companies in the world, which publishes articles and sends emails nearly every day reporting that climate change threatens the economy, and that solar panels and wind turbines are the only cost-effective solution.

  Soros donates heavily to Center for American Progress, whose founder, John Podesta, was chief of staff to Bill Clinton, campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and who currently runs policy at the Biden White House. So too does Steyer, who funds the climate activist organization founded by New Yorker author Bill McKibben, 350.org, which reported revenues of nearly $20 million in 2018.

  The most influential environmental organization among Democrats and the Biden Administration is the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, which advocated for federal control of state energy markets, the $500 billion for electric cars and renewables, and international carbon markets that would be controlled by the bankers and financiers who also donate to it.

  In the 1990s, NRDC helped energy trading company Enron to distribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to environmental groups. “On environmental stewardship, our experience is that you can trust Enron,” said NRDC’s Ralph Cavanagh in 1997, even though Enron executives at the time were defrauding investors of billions of dollars in an epic criminal conspiracy, which in 2001 bankrupted the company.

  From 2009 to 2011, NRDC advocated for and helped write complex cap-and-trade climate legislation that would have created and allowed some of their donors to take advantage of a carbon-trading market worth upwards of $1 trillion.

  NRDC created and invested $66 million of its own money in a BlackRock stock fund that invested heavily in natural gas companies, and in 2014 disclosed that it had millions invested in renewable funds.

  Former NRDC head, Gina McCarthey, now heads up Biden’s climate policy team, and Biden’s top economic advisor, Brian Deese, last worked at BlackRock, and almost certainly will return at the end of the Biden Administration.

  Money buys influence. In 2019, McKibben called Steyer a “climate champ” when Steyer announced he was running for president, adding that Steyer’s “just-released climate policy is damned good!” And in 2020, McKibben wrote an article called, “How Banks Could Bail Us Out of the Climate Crisis,” for The New Yorker, which repeated the claim that extreme weather created by climate change threatens financial interests, and that the way to prevent it is to divert public and private money away from reliable energy sources toward weather-dependent ones.

  Forms filed to the Internal Revenue Service by Steyer’s philanthropic organization, the TomKat Charitable Trust, show that it gave McKibben’s climate activist group, 350.org, $250,000 in 2012, 2014, and 2015, and may have given money to 350.org in 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, as well, because 350.org thanked either Steyer’s philanthropy, TomKat Foundation, or his organization, NextGen America, in each of its annual reports since 2013.

  At the same time, McKibben’s motivations are plainly spiritual. He claims that various natural disasters are caused by humans, that climate change literally threatens life on Earth, and is thus “greatest challenge humans have ever faced,” a statement so unhinged from reality, considering declining deaths from disasters, declining carbon emissions, and the total absence of any science for such a claim, that it must be considered religious.

  McKibben first book about climate change, The End of Nature, explicitly expressed his spiritual views, arguing that, through capitalist industrialization, humankind had lost its connection to nature. “We can no longer imagine that we are part of something larger than ourselves,” he wrote in The End of Nature. “That is what this all boils down to.” Indeed, for William James, the belief in “an unseen order” that we must adjust ourselves to, in order to avoid future punishment, is a defining feature of religion.

  Climate change is punishment for our sins against nature — that’s the basic narrative pushed by journalists, climate activists, and their banker sponsors, for 30 years. It has a supernatural element: the belief that natural disasters are getting worse, killing millions, and threatening the economy, when in reality they are getting better, killing fewer, and costing less. And it offers redemption: to avoid punishment we must align our behavior with the unseen order, namely, a new economy controlled by the U.N., bankers, and climate activists. Unfortunately, as is increasingly obvious, the unseen order is parasitical and destructive.

  When Nuclear Leads, the Bankers Will Follow

  The unseen order of bankers, climate activists, and the news media is so powerful that it is difficult to imagine how it could ever be challenged.

  The financial might of the climate lobby covers the wealth not only of billionaires Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg, but also $130 trillion in investment funds, including many of the world’s largest pension funds, such as the one belonging to California public employees. The climate lobby’s political power is equally awesome, covering the entirety of the Democratic Party and a significant portion of the Republican Party, and most center-Left parties in Europe.

  

  Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emanuel Macron, and U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm

  And all of that is sustained by cultural power, which has led many elites to view climate change as the world’s number one issue, has convinced half of all humans that climate change will make our species extinct, and has served as the apocalyptic foundation for Woke religion.

  But serious cracks in the foundation are growing. The global energy crisis has revealed for many around the world the limits of unreliable renewables, with European governments having to subsidize energy to avoid public backlash, President Biden and other heads of state opening up emergency petroleum reserves, and all nations begging OPEC to produce more energy.

  The blackouts and rising unreliability of electricity in California, along with the work of the pro-nuclear movement over the last 6 years, has resulted in a growing number of Democrats supporting nuclear energy. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm last week publicly urged California Governor Gavin Newsom not to close California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, the signature nuclear plant Environmental Progress has been trying to save since 2016. Democratic support in particular for nuclear is growing.

  

  And alternative media including Substack, podcasts, and social media platforms are increasingly providing a counterweight to the mainstream news media, exposing a huge number of issues that the media got wrong in recent years, and amplifying alternative voices.

  Nowhere is the change occurring faster than in Europe, where energy shortages are affecting heating, cooking, and electricity supplies in ways that undermine the legitimacy of the banker-led climate efforts. In Britain, private energy companies have gone bankrupt, forcing the government to bail them out. For-profit energy companies, like banks, ultimately depend on taxpayers, who are also voters.

  Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who led her nation’s exit from nuclear energy, acknowledged that Germany had been defeated in its anti-nuclear energy advocacy at the European Union level, and that nuclear would finally be recognized as low-carbon.

  And French president Emanuel Macron, under pressure from the political right as voters look to elections next year, gave a passionate speech in favor of nuclear energy last month, announcing $35 billion for new reactors.

  As the world returns to nuclear, policymakers, media elites, and climate advocates will be increasingly confronted with the question of why consumers and taxpayers will benefit from a global carbon trading scheme and more weather-dependent renewables, particularly at a time of declining global emissions from the continuing transition from coal to natural gas, reduced deforestation, and increased reforestation.

  Simply building more nuclear power plants means there is no climate change justification for weather-dependent renewables, which actually require greater use of natural gas, in order to deal with the high amount of unreliability.

  Nuclear power goes with slow and patient capital. The obvious funders of a nuclear expansion in the West would be the pension funds, which need the secure return on investment that major construction and infrastructure projects provide, and which unreliable renewables, as the energy crisis shows, do not.

  And though the news media is currently ignoring the New York Fed’s report, reporters will not be able to continue spreading misinformation about climate change indefinitely. Increasingly, they, and thus policymakers and the public, will be forced to confront facts inconvenient to their narrative, including that humans are adapting remarkably well to climate change, that renewables make energy unreliable and expensive, and that only nuclear can achieve sustainability goals of reduced emissions, material throughput, and land use.

  As people ask, “How Bad Are Weather Disasters?”, not just for banks, but for all of us, the answer will increasingly come back, “Not very.”

  *  *  *

  Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here

  Donate to Environmental Progress

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 21:30

• Biden Infrastructure Bill Includes Passive Monitoring Vehicle "Kill Switch" Mandates For Automakers
  Biden Infrastructure Bill Includes Passive Monitoring Vehicle “Kill Switch” Mandates For Automakers

  As if the Biden administration wasn’t doing enough to infringe on your civil liberties with lockdowns and vaccine mandates, media reports over the last several days are suggesting that Biden’s new infrastructure bill will also include a mandate for auto manufacturers to install “kill switches” into vehicles.

  Former Rep. Bob Barr, writing for The Daily Caller, calls the measure “disturbingly short on details”, but for the fact that the proposed device must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”

  Which, of course, is code for some kind of device that is constantly on and monitoring your vehicle – and will likely have the power to shut down your vehicle anytime it wants. 

  “This is a privacy disaster in the making, and the fact that the provision made it through the Congress reveals — yet again — how little its members care about the privacy of their constituents,” The Daily Caller writes. 

  

  It appears that in President Biden’s future, not only will you not be in charge of your own personal health decisions, but you also won’t be in charge of whether or not you can fire up your car, which you bought with your hard-earned money, to drive it somewhere, when you deem fit. 

  That decision will now “rest in the hands of an algorithm”, the report says. Similar monitoring and control devices have faced constitutional opposition, the report notes, “notably with the 5th Amendment’s right to not self-incriminate, and the 6th Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser.”

  Barr concludes: “Unless this regulatory mandate is not quickly removed or defanged by way of an appropriations rider preventing its implementation, the freedom of the open road that individual car ownership brought to the American Dream, will be but another vague memory of an era no longer to be enjoyed by future generations.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 21:00

• Obituary For Russiagate
  Obituary For Russiagate

  Authored by Patrick Lawrence via Consortium News,

  Russiagate, that fraudulent fable wherein Russian President Vladimir Putin personally subverted American democracy, Russian intelligence pilfered the Democratic Party’s email, and Donald Trump acted at the Kremlin’s behest, is at last dead.

  No, nothing sudden. It has been a slow, painful death of the sort this destructive beast richly deserved. But its demise is now definitive — in the courts and on paper. We await the better historians to see this properly into the record.

  Three key operatives in the construction of the Russiagate edifice are indicted for lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about aspects of the Russiagate tale. The Steele dossier, the document on which much of the case against former President Trump rested, is now exposed as a Nixonesque “dirty trick” authorized and paid for by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Some mainstream newspapers — certainly not all — are busy in their archives, editing out the worst of the falsehoods they reported in 2016 and 2017 as unassailable fact. This is a wholesale collapse now.

  

  There are, as one would expect, those who seem determined to hold out no matter what the factual evidence. These go well beyond MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, whose record I will let speak for itself.

  I am thinking of people such as David Corn, the Mother Jones correspondent in Washington, and David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Both invested big time into the Russiagate junk, and both published books filled with the ridiculous, evidence-free piffle of which it was made.

  Corn, Frum and numerous others like them are now industriously throwing good money after bad to go by recent publications. Here is Corn’s latest, and here Frum’s. One finds the same tired combination of presumption, useless innuendo, and spoon-fed, evidence-deficient falsities derived from the intelligence agencies that were key to fomenting the Russiagate hoax. Yes, Messrs. Corn and Frum, it was a hoax.

  To these diehards, people such as your columnist, given to rational, disinterested consideration of what is known and what is conjured from thin air, are “denialists.” Strange it is that those denying established facts and truths call those who accept these facts and truths by this name.

  But this is a measure of the extent Russiagate has plunged us into Alice–in–Wonderland depths where what is up is down, what is dark is light, what is true is to be buried, what is false is to be held high — where blindness is preferred to sight.

  This leads us to the essential question we now face, or one of them. What are the consequences of the Russiagate scam? If it rested on lies start-to-finish, this is not to say it did not exact its price. It did. The price is high, and we are fated to pay it for some time to come.

  The Damage Done

  An inquiry of this kind must begin with the damage Russiagate has done to the prevalent American consciousness. The last five years have delivered Americans into a culture of unreason of the kind they have been prone to indulging periodically throughout their history. It is made in equal parts of a native insecurity and anxiety, of paranoia and of irrationality.

  This is at once a pitiable and dangerous state. All is reduced to the Manichean distinctions characteristic of the old Westerns (not to mention most of the good guys vs. bad guys Dreck that comes out of Hollywood these days). No subtlety of thought survives in the culture of unreason. Public space is populated with poseurs, cutouts, and imposters. Public discourse, with some exceptions, is much of the time not worth bothering with.

  

  To understand this condition, we must recognize it as the work of a diabolic alliance comprised of the Democratic Party’s corrupt leadership, the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies, the national security apparatus and its many appendages, and the media. It is no longer in the slightest objectionable to speak or write of a Deep State that controls this country.

  The elite minority this alliance represents derives its power from its claim to speak for the majority — an absolutely classic case of the “soft despotism” Alexis de Tocqueville warned Americans of 190 years ago. Liberal authoritarianism is another name for what has consolidated itself in the years since Democrats, in mid–2016, first raised the phony specter of Russia “hacking” into its mail systems.

  In effect, Russiagate has tipped the American polity upside down. It is the illiberal liberals among us, righteous as the old Puritan ministers of New England, who now prosecute a regime of censorship and suppression of dissent that is at least as severe and anti-democratic as what conservatives had going during the Cold War (and in my view worse).

  It is they who seek to cow ordinary Americans into the new, weird idolatry of authority, no matter that those to whom the nation is urged to bow are proven liars, law-breakers and propagandists.

  Culture of Unreason

  There is, of course, the more dangerous world Russiagate has done so much to create. In the culture of unreason, the Deep State has a discouraging record of success in gaining wide public support for any aggressive campaign against any nation or people it wishes to act against. In this dimension, Russiagate has destroyed the Democrats as a party willing to stand against the imperial project in its late phase.

  A war with China over the Taiwan question is now spoken of as a logical possibility. Washington is now raising the temperature on the Ukraine–Russia border, just as it did when it cultivated the 2014 coup in Kiev, and this is put across as a Democratic administration’s sound policy. Rampant Russophobia is a direct consequence of the Russiagate ruse, Sinophobia its uglier sibling — uglier for its racist subtext.

  We have active subversion operations in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Peru, all progressive states in the true meaning of this term, and Democrats of all stripes — including “progressives” with the necessary quotation marks — cheer on every one of them. We cannot view this as distinct from the elevation of institutions dedicated to campaigns of covert subterfuge — chiefly but not only the CIA. — to wholly inappropriate positions of respect.

  The damage Russiagate has done to the press … let me rephrase this.  The damage the press has inflicted upon itself in the cause of Russiagate is so extensive it is hard to calculate with any precision. We watch now as their credibility collapses in real time. Those running the mainstream newspapers and networks seem to understand this, as they rush to protect what remains of their reputations with rearguard actions to obscure their grossly irresponsible conduct.

  NYT & WashPost showered themselves with Pulitzers for their monomaniacal obsession with Russiagate. Even after Mueller admitted he could find no evidence to establish the conspiracy and indicted *nobody* for it, they persisted. We’ll see what they do now:https://t.co/CLYp0rgZM6

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 5, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The long list of those who caved to the Russiagate orthodoxy includes some stunning names. Among publications that should have known better we find Mother Jones, The Nation, The Intercept, and Democracy Now! Was it conformity, pressure from donors or Democratic Party ventriloquists, or some combination of ideology, ignorance and inexperience that caused them to flip?

  The Atlantic, The New Yorker, the major dailies, the networks — they have all sustained one or another degree of discredit, left either to craven rewrites in their archives, denial in the Corn–Frum mode, or silence. None will do: They will never regain lost ground without first acknowledging what they have done, and this appears out of the question.

  Resort of Omission

  The feature of the corporate-owned press — and the “progressive,” press, as just suggested — that strikes me most now is its resort of omission. Think about it: Lengthy hearings on Capitol Hill, in which leading Democratic Party Russiagaters admit under oath they never had any of the evidence they long claimed, go unreported. The collapse of the Steele dossier goes unreported in The New York Times and other major dailies.

  It is but a short step to all else that is newsworthy but left out — the collapse of the case against Julian Assange (against whom the Russiagate frenzy was wielded), the collapse of the chemical weapons case in Syria, all the above-noted covert subversions. It is wholesale dereliction of duty now, and it was Russiagate that licensed this betrayal.

  Mainstream media are now approaching that point when they leave out more of the world we live in than they report. This is a losing proposition in the medium term — a desperate, last-ditch strategy to defend a “narrative” that simply no longer holds. I put the acceleration of this trend down to the poisoned information environment Russiagate did so much to engender.

  There is a positive dimension to the media’s fate since Russiagate, and regular readers of this column may already guess where I am headed. The disaster Russiagate has proven for the corporate-owned press, the networks, and the “left” — with-quotation-marks — press has landed independent media such as Consortium News with large, new responsibilities, and they have by-and-large risen to the occasion. Their role in keeping the truth of the Russiagate fraud on the table cannot be overstated.

  We witness, in effect, an historically significant transformation in how Americans get their news and analysis. This, a gradual process, is an excellent thing. In time, independent media stand to play as important a role in repairing the across-the-board damage of Russiagate as legacy media played in hatching and deepening it.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 20:30

• 'Never Seen Anything Like It': Los Angeles Residents Stunned As Violent Crimes Creep Into Wealthier Communities
  ‘Never Seen Anything Like It’: Los Angeles Residents Stunned As Violent Crimes Creep Into Wealthier Communities

  After two years of rising crime in Los Angeles, residents of upscale neighborhoods are finally starting to freak out after a spate of ‘flash mob‘ lootings at high-end retail stores have been accompanied with a disturbing increase in violent crimes committed in the suburbs, according to the LA Times.

  

   

  Crews of burglars publicly smashing their way into Los Angeles’ most exclusive stores. Robbers following their victims, including a star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and a BET host, to their residences. And this week, the fatal shooting of 81-year-old Jacqueline Avant, an admired philanthropist and wife of music legend Clarence Avant, in her Beverly Hills home.

  …these incidents have sparked a national conversation and led to local concern about both the crimes themselves and where the outrage over the violence will lead.

  “The fact that this has happened, her being shot and killed in her own home, after giving, sharing, and caring for 81 years has shaken the laws of the Universe,” said Oprah Winfrey, expressing grief over Avant’s killing via Twitter. “The world is upside down.”

  The Times notes that while overall crime rates within Los Angeles remain far below the notoriously violent 1990s, much of it has been concentrated in poor communities – so it receives virtually no attention. Now that crime has “crept up in wealthier enclaves and thrust its way to the center of public discourse” across the city.

  Turning point?

  In 2020, polls showed that California voters largely supported criminal justice reform, as well as rolling back tough sentencing laws to reduce prison populations without nary a thought to how it might affect the crime rate. Now, those concerned about crime and blame liberal policies for its rise are growing more vocal.

  For others, it’s been a serious wake-up call.

  “I have never seen anything like it,” said Dominick DeLuca, owner of the Brooklyn Projects skateboard shop on Melrose Avenue where burglaries and robberies have seen a sharp enough spike in recent months that he’s now carrying a gun to work. “In the last two years, I have been broken into three times.”

  On Thursday, Mayor Eric Garcetti and LAPD Chief Michael Moore advocated for locking offenders up, and questioned several pandemic-related policies that put nonviolent arrestees back on the street without bail.

  Moore said arrests had been made in several high-profile “smash-and-grab” burglaries but lamented that the suspects had all been released pending trial. Garcetti said warehousing criminals in jails without rehabilitating them is not a solution, but neither is ceding the streets to repeat offenders.

  Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón, whose progressive policies around prosecution and sentencing many blame for the uptick in crime, was notably absent at the press conference but said through his office that he is working closely with law enforcement partners to hold perpetrators accountable for such brazen crimes. -LA Times

  According to LAPD data through Nov. 27, property crime is up 2.6% YoY, but is down 6t.6% from 2019, while robberies are up 3.9% YoY and down 13.6% from 2019. Burglaries are down 8.4% from last year and 7.7% from 2019. Car thefts, meanwhile, are up nearly 53% vs. 2019.

  The difference? Rich people are now getting hit, so officials are officially concerned.

  What’s more, violent crime is way up – with homicides jumping 46.7% and shootings up 51.4% vs. 2019. As of the end of last month, there were 359 homicides year-to-date, compared with 355 in all of 2020. That said 2008 was LA’s deadliest year with 384 homicides.

  Read the rest of the report here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 20:00

• Sound Money Is A Prerequisite To Peace, Prosperity, And Freedom
  Sound Money Is A Prerequisite To Peace, Prosperity, And Freedom

  Authored by Patrick Barron via The Mises Institute,

  There are many good recommendations promoted by Austrian school economists for improving the economy. Although we enjoy successes periodically, most–such as deregulating trucking and airline pricing–involve eliminating previous government interventions. These successes are to be celebrated, of course. But no one can deny that government intervention into the economy has continued, despite these occasional success stories.

  

  The reason Big Government has continued to grow is that it controls money production. Not only does government grow in terms of spending, regulations, and interventions everywhere (both internally and overseas), but it threatens our very freedoms. In other words, government’s control of money is diametrically opposed to peace, prosperity, and freedom and eventually will destroy our republican democracy. For this reason, returning to sound money–i.e., money that is created by the private market, is part and parcel of the market, and is controlled by no one–should be goal number one for every lover of peace, prosperity, and freedom. Nothing less than the survival of our western-style way of life is at stake.

  Here are a few examples of how unsound money progresses and masks its destructive power.

  • One, unsound money allows government to confiscate resources at will. For example, in 2020 America’s bloated military spent as much as the next eleven nations of the world combined. Of course, military spending went up in 2021 and will continue to increase in 2022. America’s annual budget deficit is projected to be somewhere between $1.84 trillion and $3.4 trillion, depending upon whether you ask the Biden administration or the Congressional Budget Office. All of this money is created out of thin air. Americans’ taxes will not increase enough to cover even a fraction of the Biden estimate, and there is no appetite in the bond market for more American debt. Therefore, the Fed will monetize the new debt onto its balance sheet. The resulting increase in base money will cause the prices of most goods and services to rise. This impoverishment of the American people through the hidden tax of inflation is possible only because money is completely fiat; i.e., produced out of nothing except the government’s printing press and computer terminals.

  • Two, unsound money masks the destructive power of government market interventions. An example is former President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. According to a friend of mine, the data is irrefutable that the tariffs worked. Well, as Mark Twain said, there’s lies, damned lies, and statistics. What really is irrefutable is the economic law of opportunity cost; i.e., that choosing one thing means the giving up of another. Another is individual preference. The very fact that people must not be allowed to purchase Chinese goods means that they valued those goods to a higher extent than American goods. The reason does not have to be financial. There’s always service, availability, quality, etc. So preventing Americans from buying Chinese goods means less satisfaction for Americans. This is just one example. Another is keeping zombie companies in business through artificially lower interest rates means that capital is misallocated to less productive uses. There’s a whole panoply of labor laws that artificially raises the cost of American labor, reduces American productivity, and lowers business income. Some workers are priced out of the market through minimum wage and mandatory benefit packages. Business has less capital to invest for expansion. New business starts are discouraged. There’s something there for everyone! The destruction is masked by monetarily inflated GDP numbers, artificially suppressed Consumer Price Index (CPI) statistics, increased unemployment payments, and other government programs and manipulated data.

  • Three, and most importantly, Americans’ freedom is threatened. Government can print enough money to buy unlimited enforcers of its rules. More IRS agents. More agents for enforcing arbitrary rules of the Occupational, Safety, and Health Administration (OSHA). More agents for enforcing new environmental regulations and laws arbitrarily established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). More Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents. Perhaps even agents to confiscate guns.

  Conclusion

  Returning to limited government, creating a more free market order, having a less intrusive government, etc. requires sound money. Sound money is not a guarantee of a free society, but a free society is impossible without sound money.

  I conclude with these quotes from The Quotable Mises. The last quote is especially pertinent to the point of this brief essay. (Emphases are mine.)

  • The gold standard alone makes the determination of money’s purchasing power independent of the ambitions and machinations of governments, of dictators, of political parties, and of pressure groups. The gold standard alone is what the nineteenth-century freedom-loving leaders (who championed representative government, civil liberties, and prosperity for all) called “sound money.”

  • All those intent upon sabotaging the evolution toward welfare, peace, freedom, and democracy loathed the gold standard, and not only on account of its economic significance. In their eyes the gold standard was the labarum, the symbol, of all those doctrines and policies they wanted to destroy.

  • The classical or orthodox gold standard alone is a truly effective check on the power of the government to inflate the currency. Without such a check all other constitutional safeguards can be rendered vain.

  I do not want to close on a pessimistic note. Therefore, I offer this final quote from Ludwig von Mises, ever the optimist and ever the gentleman: “Every nation, whether rich or poor, powerful or feeble, can at any hour once again adopt the gold standard.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 19:30

• Dark Winter Looms For Pennsylvanians As Power Bills Set To Soar 
  Dark Winter Looms For Pennsylvanians As Power Bills Set To Soar 

  Power prices in some parts of Pennsylvania are set to jump as much as 50% beginning this month, according to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC).

  “Most Pennsylvania regulated electric utilities are adjusting the price they charge for the generation portion of customers’ bills on December 1 for non-shopping customers, also known as the ‘Price to Compare’ (PTC). The PTC averages 40% to 60% of the customer’s total utility bill. However, this percent varies by the utility and by the level of individual customer usage,” PUC said in a press release.

  

  PUC lists power increases for residential customers. The most significant increase comes from Pike County Light & Power, which serves nearly 5,000 customers, is expected to raise power prices by 50%. The second highest is PPL Corporation, serving about 1.4 million customers in central and eastern parts of the state, which is expected to raise power prices by 26%. 

  • Citizens’ Electric, up from 6.9777 cents to 7.9476 cents per kWh (13.9%);

  • Duquesne Light, up from 7.41 cents to 7.98 cents per kWh (7.7%);

  • Met-Ed, up from 7.114 cents to 7.414 cents per kWh (4.2%);

  • PECO, up from 6.597 cents to 7.021 cents per kWh (6.4%);

  • Penelec, down from 6.761 cents to 6.507 cents per kWh (3.8%);

  • Penn Power, down from 7.657 cents to 7.593 cents per kWh (less than 1%);

  • PPL, up from 7.544 cents to 9.502 cents per kWh (26%);

  • Pike County Light & Power, up from 6.5234 cents to 9.796 cents per kWh (50.2%);

  • Wellsboro Electric, up from 7.2596 cents to 7.5051 cents per kWh (3.4%); and

  • West Penn Power, up from 5.447 cents to 5.698 cents per kWh (4.6%);

  A PUC spokesperson told Fox News that rising energy prices are due to “market forces.” 

  Many Pennsylvanians will be in for a sticker shock this winter as the Northern Hemisphere winter approaches. Customers are already stretched thin with soaring food, fuel, and shelter inflation. It’s a good thing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told Congress on Tuesday that he would “retire” the “transitory” narrative to explain the inflationary environment that continues to crush the working poor. 

  We noted last week that Americans, already preparing for one of the darkest cold seasons in years, have been panic buying cords of firewood and stoves as they seek alternative methods to heat their homes to mitigate soaring power prices. 

  Persistent inflation this winter will continue to increase discontent for President Biden and could be favorable for Republicans ahead of midterm next year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 19:00

• Co-Opted By Wall Street: Bitcoin's Biggest Risk?
  Co-Opted By Wall Street: Bitcoin’s Biggest Risk?

  Authored by Rob Price via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  As bitcoin gains mainstream acceptance from centralized financial institutions, will Wall Street come to ruin what is most powerful about the asset?

  

  Bitcoin’s potential is immense — an independent global reserve asset, the foundation of a more ethical financial system, uncorrupted by centralized financial overlords.

  But what is the risk that bitcoin could become co-opted and corrupted by those centralized financial overlords? What if bitcoin loses its independence? What if bitcoin merely becomes another speculative Wall Street plaything?

  TLDR: Wall Street’s growing importance is unavoidable as bitcoin goes mainstream, but correlations will not rise indefinitely and bitcoin’s independence remains in the hands of everyday users like me and you.

  HOW BITCOIN’S TECHNICAL SECURITY ADVANCED IN 2021

  The great bitcoin mining migration of 2021 further decentralized bitcoin mining, which enhanced its security and reduced the possibility of a technical attack on the network itself. Furthermore, bitcoin showed in 2017 that it is resistant to change. A group of miners and merchants alienated themselves from the community because they ignored the community and pushed for an increase to the blocksize.

  So, Bitcoin is technically secure and unlikely to change its underlying principles. The network is decentralized and principles enshrined. Users have vehemently defended those principles. However, technical risks are not the only risks to bitcoin.

  WHAT IF BITCOIN BECOMES BITCOINTM, A WALL STREET PLAYTHING?

  Ben Hunt outlined some of these softer, more philosophical fears around Bitcoin in his very thought-provoking article “In Praise Of Bitcoin,” in which he wrote about the prospect of BitcoinTM emerging:

  “What is Bitcoin!TM in abstracted form? It’s a securitization or representation of Bitcoin ownership that promises the price appreciation of Bitcoin without the hassle of Bitcoin ownership. It’s a casino chip that represents the price of Bitcoin. Michael Saylor, for example, is only too happy to sell you a MicroStrategy casino chip. Or maybe you’d prefer to play on the Canadian crypto ETF felt? Or try your luck at the wheel of a Morgan Stanley private fund?”

  This is a much more insidious risk than a technical attack or government regulation, in my opinion, and it warrants reflection.

  S&P 500 CORRELATION VS. BITCOIN RISING AGAIN: SHOULD WE BE WORRIED?

  I recently noticed that the one-year rolling correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 reached its highest levels on record, according to a chart accessed via Glassnode. This shows that there is a growing relationship between Wall Street and bitcoin, which could be a signal that our worst fears are coming to fruition. Should we be worried?

  

  Source: Glassnode and Sound Money

  CENTRAL BANK POLICY DOMINATES ALL ASSET CLASSES

  From a technical perspective, different asset classes can be driven by the same factors, even if the assets are fundamentally different in nature. For example, inflation can drive gold and equities higher simultaneously but it can also generate divergent outcomes under different circumstances.

  It is no surprise that bitcoin and equity markets are both being driven higher by excessively loose monetary policy, which debases the value of fiat currencies. Many other asset classes are caught in the same theme, including property and bonds.

  A rising trend in correlations does not imply that the trend will remain intact indefinitely.

  But it could…

  WHAT COULD CAUSE A RISING CORRELATION TO BECOME A PERMANENT FEATURE?

  If Wall Street creates numerous financial products and trade in these products starts to dominate relative to actual users of the technology, the rising correlation between the S&P 500 and bitcoin could become a permanent feature. What if regulators force users to comply with numerous KYC and AML measures, reducing its censorship-resistant qualities and rendering it less independent?

  A couple of responses to each scenario:

  1) INSTITUTIONALIZATION IS INEVITABLE BUT THAT DOES NOT IMPLY WALL STREET MUST DOMINATE

  Take a look at the holders of bitcoin today: More than 35% of coins have not moved in at least two years, according to data from Glassnode, which is a strong indication of long-term investment behavior. Some percentage of these holders could be institutional investors. But the fact that they are not trading the asset implies that, for one, they do not view the asset as a speculative plaything and secondly, that they choose to expose themselves to the vagaries and eccentricities of this alternative monetary network for the long haul, i.e., they are investing on bitcoin’s terms, not Wall Street’s.

  

  Source: Glassnode and Sound Money

  Bitcoin has no central bank to enter the market during periods of turmoil. The buyers of last resort are everyday bitcoiners who believe in the project and store their long-term wealth in the asset. It’s these bitcoiners who create the price floors during price crashes.

  On-chain research via Glassnode shows that the number of addresses with balances less than 1 bitcoin continues to rise in 2021, giving an indication that smaller holders remain a very important dynamic in the market. By contrast, the growth in the number of addresses with balances great than 100 bitcoin has been negative throughout 2021, also per data accessed on Glassnode.

  

  Source: Glassnode and Sound Money

  Conclusion: Yes, Wall Street is becoming important for bitcoin, but that does not imply Wall Street dominates bitcoin.

  2) PRIVACY IS CRITICAL AND AVAILABLE TO THOSE WHO NEED IT

  I would like to remind readers that privacy is a human right and is required by all to live fulfilling human lives. You would not want someone peering into your bedroom every morning! Not only is the right to privacy enshrined in the constitution of numerous countries but also in Article 12 of the UN’s “Declaration Of Human Rights” (UDHR), from 1948.

  The desire for privacy does not imply tax evasion or criminal activity. Numerous people require privacy to live due to targeted, government-mandated, financial exclusion. There are more obvious examples in autocratic governments like China, Venezuela and Afghanistan, but there are also more nuanced examples in the countries regarded as the “free world.”

  Increasingly stringent financial, travel, property and speech restrictions imposed in 2020 and 2021 implies that the number of people who may be forced into privacy will increase.

  Thankfully, numerous users across cryptocurrency markets remain focused on privacy, using techniques to protect their human rights, including privacy-focused altcoins and mixing services to protect fungibility .

  Conclusion: While greater government oversight of cryptocurrency is inevitable, greater privacy is also available to those who are willing to put in the effort to get it. Moreover, developers continue to work on technical upgrades which enhance privacy, like Taproot in bitcoin.

  CONCLUSIONS

  I am worried about bitcoin being co-opted by traditional financial markets and a rising correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 accentuates my fear.

  Practically speaking, a rising correlation between bitcoin and the S&P500 indicates less diversification potential for traditional investors investing into bitcoin. I do not think it will dramatically alter people’s allocation decisions (0.4 is still a pretty low correlation), but it could because the optimal risk-adjusted portfolio could advocate for a slightly lower allocation based on mean-variance optimizations.

  However, a rising correlation should not be extrapolated higher indefinitely into the future. The reasons for the correlation, its persistence and its breakdown should be assessed.

  Ultimately, it is unsurprising that extreme central bank policies are driving all financial markets in 2021. If central banks were to remove their stimulus, even if only temporarily, it would have a negative impact on risk assets, including equity, like the S&P 500 and bitcoin.

  Investors should never get complacent about this tighter monetary policy risk despite the incredibly low probability that central banks will be able to implement prudent policies with higher real interest rates for any length of time.

  Despite all my worries about large players dominating bitcoin and government oversight negating the censorship resistant characteristics of bitcoin, grassroots bitcoiners continue to grow and access to privacy-preserving techniques is increasing.

  I continue to encourage all holders of bitcoin to use the technology. You may hold the asset as an investment and may not want to touch it for many years to come — that’s great! But get a little bit of bitcoin in a wallet, send it to your friend and realize the value of decentralized, borderless value transfer and storage so that we continue to advocate for this independent system maintained by individuals, not institutions.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 18:30

• Nevada Becomes First State To Impose Surcharge On Unvaccinated Workers
  Nevada Becomes First State To Impose Surcharge On Unvaccinated Workers

  by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times

  Nevada on Thursday became the first U.S. state to impose a surcharge on workers who have not gotten a COVID-19 vaccine, though the penalty doesn’t take effect until the middle of next year.

  

  All but two members of the state’s Public Employees’ Benefit Program Board (PEBP) voted during a meeting to approve a surcharge of $55 a month on unvaccinated workers.

  The approved proposal also stipulates a surcharge of $175 a month for workers’ spouses, partners, and dependents 18 and older. That could be adjusted down the road.

  The surcharges will go into effect on July 1, 2022.

  They’ll help offset the costs of COVID-19 testing, Laura Rich, executive officer of the board, said.

  Testing costs through September were estimated at $3.3 million.

  The board did not analyze the cost of COVID-19 hospitalizations for the proposal because that would have made the surcharge for spouses and dependents “significantly higher,” Rich said. State rules bar making the surcharge on workers any higher.

  Nevada’s Department of Labor last month released guidance saying the surcharges were legal, and Rich compared them to surcharges on smokers imposed by plans in the past.

  Exemptions are available for religious or medical reasons, as required by law.

  Public commenters during the meeting, and those submitting written statements, spoke out against the proposal before the vote.

  “I believe that the proposed surcharge is inappropriate and excessive,” Ellen Crecelius, one member of the public, said in a statement. She noted that many people enjoy natural immunity, or the protection one gets after having recovered from COVID-19.

  Shanna Cobb-Adams said she already pays $255.06 a month. The new surcharges would increase that by 90 percent. She expressed concern about her 18-year-old son getting a vaccine when studies show that young males are at elevated risk of developing heart inflammation after getting a vaccine, while COVID-19 poses little risk to healthy youth without serious underlying health conditions.

  Another commenter noted that Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, is the one forcing workers to get tested weekly if they don’t get a vaccine. “The unvaccinated should not have to foot the bill for the agency’s unjust decisions,” she wrote. “The fact is vaccinated and unvaccinated employees both can contract and spread the virus equally, yet the state has decided to only put the hardships on the unvaccinated unfairly.”

  Some members also voiced opposition to the proposal, and two voted against it.

  Several state residents did support the measure, including one who said that “anti-vaxxers should pay for their choice since their freedom is not free.”

  Sisolak’s policy director, DuAne Young, said that the pandemic “has been shouldered on the burden of everyone.”

  “And now this particular burden—the testing—should be shouldered on the burden of those who refuse to (be vaccinated),” Young added.

  Some companies have imposed surcharges but no states had before Thursday.

  Discussions with entities that had imposed penalties pointed to benefits like increasing the percent of workers who are vaccinated and offsetting rising costs, Rich said. If the board did not approve the surcharges, every workers’ premium, regardless of vaccination status, would need to be hiked, she said.

  Revenue from the surcharges is expected to be about $18 million a year. Testing costs are pegged at ranging from $12 million to $24 million.

  Prior to the vote, representatives for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and the Nevada Faculty Alliance said the unions were not taking a position on the proposal.

  Terri Laird, representing the Retired Public Employees of Nevada, said the organization also was neutral on the surcharges.

  But, she told members, the added costs would “burden many employees.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 18:15

• Steve Cohen's Point 72 Venture Fund Is Backing A 24 Hour Equities Exchange
  Steve Cohen’s Point 72 Venture Fund Is Backing A 24 Hour Equities Exchange

  Steven Cohen’s Point72 Ventures is getting behind the idea of 24 hour a day stock trading.

  The venture arm of Point72 is leading a $14.25 million funding round for a company called “24 Exchange”, which was founded in 2018 and has already launched FX and crypto trading platforms, according to the WSJ.

  It is now seeking approval from the SEC to become an around the clock exchange. 

  The company believes that traders who are used to trading currencies and Bitcoin, which trades all the time, want the same experience for equity markets. 

  The obvious downside to such a venture, in addition to needing regulatory approval, would be poor liquidity during off hours. But Point 72 seems to think that “24-hour equities trading has a large potential market, including nonprofessionals trading from home and overseas investors with an appetite for U.S. stocks,” the WSJ reported.

  

  Point72 Ventures partner Pete Casella commented: “When you look at the growth of equities trading over the last couple of years, a lot of that has been the increased role of retail. These are people with day jobs, so they want to trade at night and on weekends.”

  The company plans on completing its applications to the SEC by the end of December, Dmitri Galinov, founder and chief executive of 24 Exchange, said. 

  This means it’ll likely be “well into” 2022 before the SEC renders a decision. 

  24 Exchange has U.S. offices in Stamford, CT and Miami, and is incorporated in Bermuda. 

  Point 72 ventures has also invested in fintech startups like Acorns and Say Technologies. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 18:00

• CNN Fires Chris Cuomo Following Recent Suspension
  CNN Fires Chris Cuomo Following Recent Suspension

  CNN star anchor Chris Cuomo was fired on Saturday, just days after the network suspended him amid an internal investigation into his efforts to help his brother, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, fight a sexual harassment scandal.

  

  “Chris Cuomo was suspended earlier this week pending further evaluation of new information that came to light about his involvement with his brother’s defense,” read a Saturday statement from CNN. “We retained a respected law firm to conduct the review, and have terminated him, effective immediately. While in the process of that review, additional information has come to light. Despite the termination, we will investigate as appropriate.”

  As the New York Times reports, the announcement is a ‘stunning downfall’ for the network’s top-rated anchor who had – up until last month – enjoyed the support of CNN president Jeff Zucker. He notably faced no discipline for strategizing with his brother’s political aides – ‘a breach of basic journalistic norms.’

  Brian Stelter of CNN‘s “Reliable Sources” predicted Cuomo would be back in January. Whoops.

  Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, said he believes it is possible that Chris Cuomo will be back on air in January.https://t.co/NQhLpmz2CP

  — Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 1, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsChris Cuomo’s undoing came after the NY Attorney General released a batch of testimony and text messages on Nov. 29 which revealed Cuomo had played a far more intimate and direct role in his brother’s damage control.

  pic.twitter.com/YfH8teYx36

  — Lonewolfy 🐺 (@Lonewolfy777) December 4, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  In May, CNN anchor Jake Tapper spoke out publicly against the Cuomo brothers – saying that his colleague had “put us in a bad spot,” adding “I cannot imagine a world in which anybody in journalism thinks that that was appropriate.”

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 17:33

• ​​​​​​​Wall Street Firms Tell Employees To "Dress Down" As Violent Crime Rages 
  ​​​​​​​Wall Street Firms Tell Employees To “Dress Down” As Violent Crime Rages 

  As New York City political elites brag about their “urban utopia,” reality shows it’s nothing like that. Rather a dystopia as defunding the police and other progressive policies have resulted in a surge of violent crime. The city saw its most significant year-over-year increase in shootings and homicides in more than half a century between 2019 and 2020. Violent crime continues to plague the city today, as top Wall Street firms tell their employees to “dress down” to avoid being targeted. 

  

  Outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s progressive policies doomed the city as successor, Mayor-elect Eric Adams, a former police officer and Brooklyn Borough President, is expected to deal with soaring violent crime. 

  At the Bank of America Tower in Midtown Manhattan, senior executives have told employees to “dress down” to avoid being targeted by thieves, according to NYPost, who quoted one bank employee who spoke with On The Money. Execs told employees to avoid wearing the bank’s insignia on clothing as they commute to work. 

  Employees have been extra cautious about potential attacks after someone recently spotted a man wielding a knife near the office building. Bank of America is not the only financial firm in Midtown and Lower Manhattan to advise employees about surging crime and how they need to take precautions to avoid becoming a victim. 

  Citibank has offered employees private shuttles to avoid public transportation as violent crime becomes a significant problem. The city reported a 15% increase in felony assaults in November, compared with the same period last year.

  

  Another Wall Street source told On The Money the fear of being targeted on the commute home has “been a topic of conversation on the floor frequently over the last few months.”

  “Some people I work with have been accosted … I’d say it’s becoming frequent, if not common,” the source said. “There’s probably a dozen incidents that I saw, or have been involved in,” the person said — mostly verbal, but some physical, the person said.

  According to Kastle Systems today, whose electronic access systems secure office buildings in the metro area, only 28% of NYC employees are back in the office compared with 35% last month. The decline is due to the spread of the new COVID-19 variant. 

  

  Rising violent crime in the metro area could be the golden opportunity for some employees who’ve returned to the office but want to return to remote working status. Their excuse is that commuting to work is a life-or-death situation. 

  It’s not just Wall Street bankers frightened about being targeted. College students are on alert after a Columbia University student was stabbed to death on Thursday. 

  Columbia University Student Dies in Stabbing Near Campus

  New York is back…. 1970s New York

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 3, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  NYC is becoming a liberal hellhole where violent crime will only worsen under progressive policies. For bankers who want to dress down, try incorporating the ‘homeless’ clothing line sold by elite clothing brands (Gucci makes $900 pair of sneakers that look like someone pulled them out of a garbage can). 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 17:00

• When Fiat Currency Stops Being Money
  When Fiat Currency Stops Being Money

  Authored by Daniel Lacalle via The Mises Institute,

  Most emerging and developed market currencies have devalued significantly relative to the United States dollar in 2021 despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary policy. Furthermore, emerging economies that have benefitted from rising commodity prices have also seen their currencies weaken despite strong exports. As such, inflation in developing economies is much higher than the already elevated figures posted in the United States and the eurozone.

  

  The main reason behind this is a global currency debasement problem that is making citizens poorer.

  Most central banks globally are implementing the same expansionary policies of the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve System but the results are disproportionately hurting the poor as inflation rises, particularly in essential goods and services, while fiscal and monetary imbalances are increasing.

  Many emerging economies have implemented a very dangerous policy of boosting twin deficits—fiscal and trade deficits—under the misguided idea that it will accelerate growth. Now growth and recovery estimates are coming down but monetary imbalances remain.

  Therefore, most currencies are falling relative to the US dollar. The policies implemented by global central banks are as aggressive or even more so than those of the Federal Reserve but without the global demand that the US dollar enjoys. If global nations with sovereign currencies continue to play this dangerous game, local and international demand for their currency will evaporate and dependence on the US dollar will rise. More importantly, if the Federal Reserve continues to put its global reserve status to the test, all fiat currencies may suffer a loss of confidence and a move to other alternatives.

  If the private sector does not accept this currency as a unit of measure, a generalized means of payment, and a store of value backed by reserves and demand from the mentioned private sector, the currency becomes worthless and ceases to be money. Ultimately, it becomes useless paper.

  Examples of state currencies that are neither a store of value nor a generally accepted means of payment are many. From the sucre in Ecuador, which disappeared, to the Argentine peso or the Venezuela bolivar, the examples in history are innumerable.

  In Cuba inflation is now estimated at 6,900 percent due to the lack of demand for a worthless currency with no real demand or reserves to back it.

  Once this sort of thing happens, the state does not create money, it simply issues a means of payment—the currency—using the credibility of private sector demand to issue its promissory note. Like a debt issuer who loses repayment credibility, the value of this promise fades if the currency does not have private backing.

  More importantly, the value of the currency and its use is not decided by the government. It is decided by the last private sector agent who accepts the promise of payment because they assume that it will maintain its value and its acceptance as a medium of payment.

  As such, when a government creates many more of these increasingly worthless promissory notes, far outstripping the real local and international demand, the effect is the same as a massive default. The government is simply impoverishing the citizens, who are forced to use the currency, and destroying the credibility of the value of the government’s promissory notes.

  When a state creates a currency without real reserve backing or demand, it destroys money.

  When the government issues currency—promises of payment—that are neither a store of value nor a generally accepted means of payment nor a unit of measure, it not only does not create money, it destroys it by sinking the purchasing power of the poor captive citizens, who are forced to accept its notes and little pieces of paper (government officials, pensioners, etc.).

  This is what we are seeing in many nations all over the world, a massive salary and savings slash created by government intervention on the monetary balance to its own benefit. Governments benefit from inflation because they pay their debt in a currency of diminishing value and they impose a cut to the price they pay for wages and the services of the sectors that provide service to the issuer of currency. Even in developed nations with relatively stable currencies, inflation is a big benefit for governments that collect higher revenues from the money-based taxes (wage, profit, and sales taxes) … and a big negative for savers and real wages.

  Some say that workers may benefit because wages will rise in tandem with inflation. This is simply incorrect. Wages, at best, may rise with the consumer price index, which is a very weak measure of inflation and is a basket created by government bodies to lower real inflation in an average of combined goods and services. However, even if you consider the consumer price index, the vast majority of workers do not even see a rise in wages that compensates for the index rise. That is why median real wages are falling in the United States.

  Those who say that the state can always “create money and spend it”—and only has to create the money it needs to finance the public sector because it will be accepted by the rest of the economic agents—should be obliged to receive their salaries in Argentine pesos and enjoy the experience.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 16:30

• U.S. Ship Logjam Worsens As Biden's Attempt To Save Christmas Fails
  U.S. Ship Logjam Worsens As Biden’s Attempt To Save Christmas Fails

  President Biden told Americans that the supply chain is in “very strong shape” ahead of Christmas. Speaking from the White House Wednesday, Biden said his administration has partnered with the private sector to “ensure the store shelves are stocked.” But new shipping data shows snarled supply chains are worsening, and it could take months to untangle them. 

  New shipping data from the busiest U.S. port complex, Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, shows 96 container ships idled offshore, waiting to unload cargo.

  FreightWaves’ Greg Miller described a new queuing system for vessels as pure optics, which reduces the number of ships offshore of Los Angeles/Long Beach. He said ships are being placed in holding patterns further out into the ocean where they’re out of sight and out of mind — to prevent attention-grabbing aerial imagery of container ship logjams.

  The new queuing system has divided vessels into a couple of categories: 40 ships anchored within 40 miles of the ports and 56 outside that perimeter. With the line continuing to get longer at the U.S.’ largest containerized ports, the Biden miracle to save Christmas appears to be failing.  

  What’s also worsening are wait times. It now takes 21 days, or three weeks, for a vessel to enter the twin ports, that’s up from seven in August. 

  

  Biden’s effort to reduce dwell times is not working, even after he announced a new directive for the twin ports in mid-October to operate on a 24/7 basis. We noted at the time, in a piece titled “Here’s The Truth Behind Biden’s 24/7 Port Operations Pledge,” that the move would not save Christmas. 

  There’s even more confirmation that disputes the president’s claim supply chains are easing. FreightWaves’ Clarissa Hawes said, “we are drowning on the landside by long lines and staffing issues at the terminals.” She said a flawed appointment system and other efficiency issues for drayage truckers continue to plague the twin ports. 

  Biden’s attempt to save Christmas appears to be failing. There’s still time to call in the National Guard. At least now the administration can blame the new Omicron COVID-19 variant on why some store shelves are still bare. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 16:00

• Leveraged Bitcoin Traders Flushed Out In Epic Overnight Crash
  Leveraged Bitcoin Traders Flushed Out In Epic Overnight Crash

  The price of Bitcoin was rangebound on early Friday around the $56k handle. The world’s largest cryptocurrency then spiked when the kneejerk read of the November payrolls came in as very disappointing, seen as postponing the Fed’s plans to accelerate the taper but then began to decline during the US cash session to about $54k-$53k handle by late afternoon as the narrative flipflopped and near unanimous consensus emerged around a Fed announcement that Powell would announce a much faster taper on Dec 15 leading to rate lift off by June.

  Then at midnight into the early hours of Saturday morning, during the traditionally illiquid Asian session when things normally go splat in the night for cryptos as one or more super levered Asian momentum chasers blow up, Bitcoin suffered a massive liquidation and crashed down to the $42k level, tumbling into a bear market. Price has recovered some, now trading around $47k. 

  

  We noted that the action was that of a margined whale getting liquidated…

  Someone just got margined to liquidstion https://t.co/TVYDfmwXZu

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 4, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  … an assessment Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia Pacific with crypto exchange Luno in Singapore agreed with, telling Bloomberg the action overnight was leveraged buyers of Bitcoin being flushed out. 

  “Markets have also been jittery with all the uncertainty around omicron, with cases now appearing in many countries,” Ayyar said. “It’s hard to say what that means for economies and markets and hence the uncertainty.”

  And sure enough, according to Coinglass, over 410K crypto accounts were liquidated in the past 24 hours totaling $2.6 billion with the largest liquidation being $27 million.

  

  

  So far, Bitcoin has found support just below the 200dma. 

  

  The plunge is just another sign of risk aversion sweeping across global markets as equities sink and fate havens soar. Spiking inflation is forcing central banks to tighten monetary policy, reducing liquidity for risk assets. However, as we first pointed out yesterday, we are now at the point where the market is starting to price in the first future rate cut – sometime in 2023-2024 – resulting from the Fed’s overtightening cycle.

  

  The omicron variant of COVID-19 has also compounded risk aversion as it derails the global economic reopening. 

  Today’s global cryptocurrency market cap is $2.28 Trillion, down 17.5% in the last 24 hours. Total cryptocurrency trading volume in the last day is at $236 billion. Bitcoin’s market cap of all crypto is 38.68%. 

  

  That said, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is using the dip to buy even more Bitcoin. 

  Missed the f***ing bottom by 7 minutes 😂

  — Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻 (@nayibbukele) December 4, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  You must buy 50 more coins to match.

  It’s just a couple million dollars more…

  Come on! https://t.co/GPTvjXM9ru

  — Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻 (@nayibbukele) December 4, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  And as the storm of schadenfreude readies to strike, declaring ‘bitcoin is dead’, remember, this is the 434th time that call has been made…

  

  Source: 99Bitcoin.com

  Finally, we note that while Ethereum (and every coin) has been crushed, it has outperformed Bitcoin in this carnage and has pushed up to its strongest relative to the larger market cap coin since 

  

  “It seems that investors are taking ETH as a hedge here,” said Crypto Birb, an independent market analyst in a tweet Saturday, pointing to a four-hour ETH/BTC price chart (as shown below) that showed the pair retracing sharply after testing its 200-period moving average (the orange wave) as support.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 15:47

• Kremlin Says Biden-Putin Talks Will Take Place Tuesday
  Kremlin Says Biden-Putin Talks Will Take Place Tuesday

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  The Kremlin said Friday that it has a tentative date for virtual talks between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin that will take place in the coming days and is waiting on confirmation from the US. It followed on Saturday by indicating Tuesday evening for the virtual summit.

  “We are working on a possible contact between Putin and Biden in the videoconference format. This contact is to take place within days. We have a concrete date and time for this videoconference. But it is better to wait until all its parameters are agreed with the US side and then we will be able to announce it officially,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

  

  Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Stockholm on Thursday to discuss Ukraine tensions. The diplomats made little progress, but Blinken said they agreed on new Biden-Putin talks in the “near future.”

  Ushakov said the talks would build on the Biden-Putin summit that took place in Geneva back in June. The leaders are expected to discuss several issues, including Ukraine and NATO’s presence near Russia’s borders.

  Putin will seek guarantees from Biden and NATO that the military alliance would not move further eastward or deploy weapons that threaten Russia near the country’s borders, including Ukraine. Ushakov pointed out that the US had given assurances NATO wouldn’t expand towards Russia at the end of the Cold War.

  The Kremlin has said virtual format talks between the two heads of state will take place Tuesday evening…

  Here we go: Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with his US counterpart Joe Biden on Tuesday evening, the Kremlin has announced. The two men will speak using a secure video link, discussing Ukraine and other outstanding issues.https://t.co/gx1EtlGzdH

  — Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) December 4, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “It is a very old issue. Both the Soviet Union and Russia were given verbal assurances that NATO’s military structures would not advance eastward. However, it turned out that those verbal assurances were worthless,” he said.

  Since the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO has grown from 16 member states to 30. The military alliance has also waged wars of aggression across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 12/04/2021 – 15:30

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• Victor Davis Hanson: Third-Worldizing America
  Victor Davis Hanson: Third-Worldizing America

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson, op-ed via Townhall.com,

  In a recent online exchange, YouTuber Casey Neistat posted his fury after his car was broken into and the contents stolen. Los Angeles, he railed, was turning into a “3rd-world s-hole of a city.”

  The multimillionaire actor Seth Rogen chastised Neistat for his anger.

  

  Rogen claimed that a car’s contents were minor things to lose.

  He added that while living in West Hollywood he had his own car broken into 15 times, but thought little of it.

  Online bloggers ridiculed Rogen. No wonder – the actor lives in multimillion-dollar homes in the Los Angeles area, guarded by sophisticated security systems and fencing.

  Yet both Neistat and Rogen accurately defined Third Worldization: the utter breakdown of the law and the ability of the rich within such a feudal society to find ways to avoid the violent chaos.

  After traveling the last 45 years in the Middle East, southern Europe, Mexico, and Asia Minor, I observed some common characteristics of a so-called Third-World society. And all of them might feel increasingly familiar to contemporary Americans.

  Whether in Cairo or Naples, theft was commonplace. Yet property crimes were almost never seriously prosecuted.

  In a medieval-type society of two rather than three classes, the rich in walled estates rarely worry that much about thievery. Crime is written off as an intramural problem of the poor, especially when the middle class is in decline or nonexistent.

  Violent crime is now soaring in America. But two things are different about America’s new criminality.

  • One is the virtual impunity of it. Thieves now brazenly swarm a store, ransack, steal, and flee with the merchandise without worry of arrest.

  •  

  • Second, the Left often justifies crime as a sort of righteous payback against a supposedly exploitative system. So, the architect of the so-called 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, preened of the riotous destruction of property during the summer of 2020: “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.”

  Third Worldization reflects the asymmetry of law enforcement. Ideology and money, not the law, adjudicate who gets arrested and tried, and who does not.

  There were 120 days of continuous looting, arson, and lethal violence during the summer of 2020. Rioters burned courthouses, police precincts, and an iconic church.

  And there was also a frightening riot on January 6, when a mob entered Washington D.C.’s Capitol and damaged federal property. Of those arrested during the violence, many have been held in solitary confinement or under harsh jail conditions. That one-day riot is currently the subject of a congressional investigation.

  Some of those arrested are still – 10 months later – awaiting trial. The convicted are facing long prison sentences.

  In contrast, some 14,000 were arrested in the longer and more violent rioting of 2020. Most were released without bail.

  The majority had their charges dropped. Very few are still being held awaiting capital charges.

  A common denominator to recent controversies at the Justice Department, CIA, FBI, and Pentagon is that all these agencies under dubious pretexts have investigated American citizens with little or no justification – after demonizing their targets as “treasonous,” “domestic terrorists,” “white supremacists,” or “racists.”

  In the Third World, basic services like power, fuel, transportation, and water are characteristically unreliable: in other words, much like a frequent California brownout.

  I’ve been on five flights in my life where it was announced there was not enough fuel to continue to the scheduled destination. The plane was required either to turn around or land somewhere on the way. One such aborted flight took off from Cairo, another from southern Mexico. The other three were this spring and summer inside the United States.

  One of the most memorable scenes that I remember of Ankara, Old Cairo, or Algiers of the early 1970s were legions of beggars and the impoverished sleeping on sidewalks.

  But such impoverishment pales in comparison to the encampments of present-day Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento, or San Francisco. Tens of thousands live on sidewalks and in open view use them to defecate, urinate, inject drugs, and dispose of refuse.

  In the old Third World, extreme wealth and poverty existed in close proximity. It was common to see peasants on horse-drawn wagons a few miles from coastal villas. But there is now far more contiguous wealth and poverty in Silicon Valley. In Redwood City and East Palo Alto, multiple families cram into tiny bungalows and garages, often a few blocks from tony Atherton.

  On the main streets outside of Stanford University and the Google campus, the helot classes sleep in decrepit trailers and buses parked on the streets.

  Neistat was right in identifying a pandemic of crime in Los Angeles as Third Worldization.

  But so was Rogen, though unknowingly so.

  The actor played the predictable role of the smug, indifferent Third World rich who master ignoring – and navigating around – the misery of others in their midst.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 23:40

• Tesla Has Officially Moved Its Headquarters To Austin
  Tesla Has Officially Moved Its Headquarters To Austin

  Tesla’s already announced plan to move its corporate headquarters out of California and into Texas is now complete. 

  The change went into effect on Wednesday of this week, according to Inside EVs, and the company filed a corresponding disclosure with the SEC listing its new address.

  “On December 1, 2021, Tesla, Inc. relocated its corporate headquarters to Gigafactory Texas at 13101 Harold Green Road, Austin, Texas 78725,” the filing says. 

  This address is “right next to Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas facility,” where the company owns 2,000 acres. A recent drone flyover revealed the area only has “some temporary trailers and construction offices” for the time being, the report said.

  The location is about 5 minutes from the airport and 15 minutes from downtown, according to the NY Post.

  

  Recall, Musk first announced the move in the beginning of October during the company’s annual shareholder meeting in the Austin area. At the time, Musk stressed that Tesla would continue to expand in both California and Nevada, saying “we will continue to expand our activities in California. This is not a matter of Tesla leaving California. Our intention is to increase output from Freemont and giga-Nevada by 50%.”’

  “It’s tough for people to afford houses and a lot of people have to come in from far away,” Musk said at the time.

  He continued: “We’re taking it as far as possible but there’s a limit to how big you can scale it in the Bay Area.”

  Musk had previously taken exception with California’s handing of Covid, stating on Twitter at one point this year: “Frankly this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependent on how Tesla is treated in the future.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 23:20

• The Case For Compulsory Vaccinations Is Dead… Omicron Just Killed It
  The Case For Compulsory Vaccinations Is Dead… Omicron Just Killed It

  Authored by Kit Knightly via off-Guardian.org,

  Yesterday, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, held a press conference where she talked at length about her “concerns” over the EU’s low vaccination rate, and how best to “fix” it.

  When asked about making vaccines mandatory, she said:

  It is understandable and appropriate to lead this discussion now – how we can encourage and potentially think about mandatory vaccination within the European Union. This needs discussion, this needs a common approach, but I think it’s a discussion that has to be led.”

  Adding:

  Two or three years ago, I would have never thought to witness what we see right now, that we have this horrible pandemic, we have the life-saving vaccines but they are not being used adequately everywhere. And thus this is an enormous health cost,”

  Of course, the idea that the EU nations are going to “debate” mandatory vaccinations is a joke, they are more likely to enforce them no matter what.

  

  But any real, rational debate was over as soon as the EU and the vaccine manufacturers both admitted that the vaccines do not work.

  By any pre-2021 definition, the Covid “vaccines” are not actually vaccines. From the beginning, it has been widely admitted that they don’t stop you getting the disease, and they don’t stop you spreading it.

  Every day we hear about some famous person or other testing positive “despite being vaccinated”.

  The EU has already hinted that their vaccination passes (which, ironically enough, they appear to have been planning for “two or three years” despite von der Leyen claiming they never saw the pandemic coming), will expire in nine months.

  Why will they expire?

  Because the “protection” allegedly conferred by the vaccine wears off.

  How fast does it wear off?

  They have no idea.

  The alleged emergence of the Omicron variant makes the situation even worse, from the establishment point of view. Indeed, it could be argued the first real casualty of the Omicron outbreak was narrative cohesion.

  Experts are already warning that the Omicron variant may be resistant to the vaccines, and the CEO of Moderna added his voice to this chorus yesterday, saying:

  I think it’s going to be a material drop [in vaccine effectiveness]. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to…are like ‘this is not going to be good’.”

  Even if these warnings prove incorrect, and the mainstream suddenly backtracks and starts reporting that the vaccines work “better than expected” to combat Omicron, that’s irrelevant.

  They have just admitted that the “vaccines” could stop working the moment there is a new mutation. And viruses mutate a lot.

  So, they know the vaccine’s don’t work very well, they know they will wear off, and they know any new mutations could stop them working completely.

  The only thing they don’t know is what the long term side effects of the vaccines are, a fact admitted by Pfizer themselves in their supply contracts:

  the long-term effects and efficacy of the Vaccine are not currently known and that there may be adverse effects of the Vaccine that are not currently known

  Now, here’s the all-purpose disclaimer: This is not admitting that Covid19 is dangerous, the pandemic real or in any other way endorsing the narrative. Rather, and this is important, it’s pointing out that even on their own terms the establishment’s plan for compulsory vaccination does not make any sense at all.

  The current narrative is that:

  • The vaccines do not confer immunity or prevent transmission.
  • What beneficial effect they do have wears off, they don’t know when.
  • They probably don’t protect against new variants or mutations.
  • The vaccines have unknown longterm side effects.

  These are not fringe ideas or baseless theories, they are the self-contradictory supposed “facts” of the schizophrenic covid story.

  Going entirely by the mainstream’s own words, and completely on their own terms, any possible case for mandatory vaccinations is dead.

  The “Omicron variant” killed it, even if it never killed anything else.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 23:00

• Alumni Are Now Withholding Donations Over Too Much Censorship On Campus
  Alumni Are Now Withholding Donations Over Too Much Censorship On Campus

  The censorship on college campuses is getting to such a fever pitch that alumni are now withholding donations in an attempt to get colleges to “enforce free speech”.

  For example, the Wall Street Journal reports that when Cornell reached out to alumnus Carl Neuss for a seven-figure check, he responded by saying he was “worried about what he saw as liberal indoctrination on campus and declining tolerance toward competing viewpoints.”

  So, it turns out it isn’t the snowflakes that head out into the real world and make the millions, we guess?

  When the school put Neuss in touch with their “moderate” political staff, the staff complained that they were “humiliated” by the diversity training that the school mandates.

  “If you say the wrong words, you could lose your position or be shunned,” Neuss told the WSJ.

  Joel Malina, Cornell’s vice president for university relations, told the paper that “robust debate and a discussion of all views remain hallmarks of the Cornell experience both in and out of the classroom.”

  Instead of donating, Neuss then helped start the Cornell Free Speech Alliance – described by the WSJ as “one of about 20 such dissident alumni organizations that have taken root on college campuses over the last couple of years.”

  Neuss isn’t the only alumnus concerned. And Cornell isn’t the only campus where this is playing out.

  

  John Craig, who is head of a group at Davidson College in North Carolina called Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse, commented: “This is a battle for our culture and, in many ways, for Western civilization.”

  Some of these organizations have “watch lists” for liberal professors who groups believe advocate their own ideologies in place of encouraging debate. 

  An organization called the Generals Redoubt started by alumni at Washington and Lee University in Virginia sent out 10,000 emails asking alumnus to “suspend contributions to the university until this situation is rectified.”

  Washington and Lee President Will Dudley responded: “We’re living in an environment where people on both sides, right and left, are engaged in a culture war and they want to use universities. I don’t find that beneficial to our mission and I’m not interested in being a participant in it.”

  Claudia Leon, a junior at Cornell University from San Juan, Puerto Rico, defended the campus, stating that bigots should “think twice” before speaking. She argued: “Just because you can’t go around calling someone an [ethnic slur] anymore, doesn’t mean your free-speech rights are being stifled.”

  Even about 80% of students have said they “self-censor” at times due to rules on campuses, according to a survey this year by RealClearEducation, College Pulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The same survey found that 66% of students think it is “acceptable to shout down a speaker to prevent him or her from speaking on campus”.

  23% of students polled even said it was acceptable to use violence to stop a campus speech. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 22:40

• What A Homeschooling Surge Means For Our Future
  What A Homeschooling Surge Means For Our Future

  Authored by Alice Salles via The Libertarian Institute & Mises.org,

  Parents across America were caught unprepared for the mass closure of government schools in 2020. Soon after, however, many decided they and their children had had enough of the status quo. Now at a crossroads, will they choose reform or repudiation?

  The wave of ill-advised school shutdowns last year compelled tens of thousands of parents to rethink their children’s education. When the classroom was virtually forced into their homes via Zoom, parents realized just how abysmal the curricula and tutelage were. Statistics on families fleeing to homeschooling must be worrying the education establishment.

  

  From 2012 to 2019, the homeschooling rate hovered around 3.3 percent of K–12 US students. That figure rose to 5.4 percent in spring 2020. By the following fall, that figure had more than doubled to 11.1 percent.

  Among black families, the increase was particularly noteworthy considering only 3.3 percent of black children were homeschooled in spring 2020 versus 16.1 percent in the fall.

  While legacy media focused on cases of parents keeping their kids home out of fear of covid, longtime critics of the public school system argued that the pandemic actually helped to expose parents to the abuses and shortcomings that have long plagued public education.

  Some chose homeschooling, but many other parents took to school board meetings, facing the beast head-on and ripping apart the deceptive social engineering with the public comment microphone. All the glory, glitz, and glam has so far gone to the latter group.

  They grew a decentralized movement with immediate political consequences not only in Virginia’s gubernatorial election but also in school board races across the country earlier this month.

  Axios, the popular DC-based news outlet run by former Politico journalists, recently reported on the growth of the 1776 Project, a new political action committee focused on reforming public school systems at the local level. “My PAC is campaigning on behalf of everyday moms and dads who want to have better access to their children’s education,” the PAC’s founder Ryan Girdusky told Axios.

  The 1776 Project won three-fourths of its fifty-eight races across seven states, proving the populist Right’s focus on the culture wars to be smart politicking. Now Republicans in Congress are pushing a “parents bill of rights” ahead of their 2022 primary elections. Included are so-called rights to know what’s taught at school, the right to be heard, and the right to transparent school budgets and spending.

  The effects of COVID-19 on public schools: Enrollment fell by 3% in Autumn 2020 as families shifted to options such as homeschooling and private schools. Sharpest declines were in lower grades, especially kindergarten. https://t.co/rRNqVLlWkZ pic.twitter.com/ozauGgBj4t

  — aedmans (@aedmans) November 26, 2021

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  “This list of rights will make clear to parents what their rights are and clear to schools what their duties to parents are,” their flier states. The reform position focuses on schools’ duty to parents and ipso facto their children. But what of the duties parents owe to their children?

  What if, instead of pointing their collective finger at the school boards, parents looked in the mirror? What if they asked themselves how or why they feel entitled to have a place to drop their kids off for thirteen years of government brainwashing?

  Any taxpayer has a perfect reason to object to school mask mandates or the teaching of racist and queer ideologies. Parents must start thinking more deeply about the situation, though.

  Certainly for some, running for school board positions is their best shot at helping to provide their children and their neighbors’ children with better education. The problem is that in too many places, there’s an absolute crisis in education that can’t wait any longer for reform, no matter how severe.

  Every family and community ultimately applies the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, the notion that the best way to organize society is for each action or decision to be taken at the smallest scale necessary, in assessing what must be done about things such as education.

  By simply refusing to accept what federal or state authorities peddled throughout 2020, parents rightfully accepted more responsibility, clearly demonstrating that when things get personal, people will do what it takes to take back control.

  Whatever step in that direction is taken, the child is better off. In his great essay “Education: Free and Compulsory,” Murray Rothbard argued that public school and compulsory schooling laws tend to victimize the child: “The effect of the State’s compulsory schooling laws is not only to repress the growth of specialized partly individualized private schools for the needs of various types of children. It also prevents the education of the child by the people who, in many respects, are best qualified—his parents.”

  Unfortunately, far too few parents think of themselves as qualified, much less the best qualified educators of their children. They are easily led to believe simple reforms will “fix the system” they grew up dependent upon as children themselves.

  “We always hear, Oh it’s broken. It’s not broken. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do,” Katie Phipps Hague told Mises Institute supporters at the latest summit in Florida last month.

  Hague shared her experience homeschooling her seven kids and encouraged other parents to give it a try, essentially asking, What have you got to lose?

  I know this sounds like I’m a crazy person, but if you pulled your children out of school… for a whole year, then include them in everything that you do in all of your trips and all of your conversations, put them around the intelligent, capable people that you all have in your circles and let them become comfortable around those people, you’d probably do better for them than maybe anything else you could ever do.

  It’s wonderful that the populist movement on the right is targeting the educational bureaucracy, one of the great roots of societal decay. There is a lot of potential for good in populism, but not if it sets its sights on mere reforms. A much brighter future lies in a libertarian populism where parents free themselves from these decrepit statist systems altogether and grow alternative institutions.

  Parents must be responsible for their children’s education precisely so that children learn to be autonomous. Autonomous people don’t support tyrannical policies, so the sooner parents embrace their own power, the sooner their children will be able to unleash their own.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 22:20

• Watch: Disturbing Confrontation Inside Australia's 'Gold Standard' COVID Internment Camp
  Watch: Disturbing Confrontation Inside Australia’s ‘Gold Standard’ COVID Internment Camp

  Days ago we presented the latest Orwellian headline out of Australia… “Aussie Police Arrest Teen ‘Fugitives’ Who Escaped From COVID Internment Camp”. Since then more incredibly disturbing video from inside the Northern Australian Covid internment camp, Howard Springs facility, has emerged. A frightening confrontation between a imprisoned “quarantined” woman and camp authorities was caught on hidden camera.

  One host on the popular cultural commentary and news analysis site UnHeard recently introduced a segment taking a look at the fresh footage from inside the notorious Covid internment camp : “Australia. Until recently, that country was most famous for its sunshine and relaxed attitude. Well since the Covid pandemic hit we’ve all got to know another side of Australia…”

  Paradise in Australia. pic.twitter.com/BXNrwFzRy5

  — Evelyn Rae (@_evelynrae) December 3, 2021

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  “With some of the longest and most stringent lockdowns and travel restrictions in the world, it’s become a case study of what happens when a government will do anything to keep Covid numbers low,” host Freddie Sayers’ narration continues. 

  “Their latest policy is to build special camps, Covid internment camps – to which infected and suspected infected people are moved. The biggest of these camps is called Howard Springs.”

  “It houses up to 2,000 inmates, surrounded by tall fences and carefully policed against attempts to escape. It’s been described as the ‘gold standard’ of such camps and is being replicated across Australia.”

  The woman being interrogated and threatened with a 5000 AU$ fine in the above video can been seen in a follow-up interview below, conducted after she was released from detention…

  As is shown in the video in question, camp officials confronted the quarantined woman, later identified as Hayley Hodgson, and began pointing out yellow lines that she could not cross. 

  She never tested positive for COVID after being tested three times. “Never had Covid. I was in close contact with someone – never got it, and I was treated literally like a criminal,” she later described. After her 14-day stint at the camp, she lost her job, returning to her home unemployed, she later confirmed. 

  Up until recently, Australia – with its sprawling coastline and beautiful beaches, outdoor and adventure life, and nearly year-round sunshine – was considered by most to be a large “paradise” vacation spot in the South Pacific… but now it’s marked as the place of “Covid quarantine hell”. 

  * * *

  Meanwhile, in neighboring New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has unironically given citizens permission to use the bathroom inside other people’s homes when visiting…

  Exciting news from New Zealand, where PM Jacinda Ardern has given her people permission to use the bathroom inside their friends’ homes.pic.twitter.com/YhbzuJiBRL

  — Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) November 29, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 22:00

• Evil Is The Root Of All (Fiat) Money
  Evil Is The Root Of All (Fiat) Money

  Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,

  “So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?”

  -Ayn Rand

  Money used to be a stable medium of exchange and a store of value but that was in the days when there were sound monetary principles, mostly backed by gold or silver.

  Since 1913 and especially 1971 there is no discipline and no morals when it comes to the issuing of money as unlimited amounts of fake fiat money is printed at will.

  In today’s fiat money world, there is only one answer to Rand’s question “What is the root of all money?”, namely:

  “Evil is the root of all fiat money.”

  – Egon von Greyerz

  On the IMF (International Monetary Fund) website there is an article stating that “Money is something that holds its value” – Hmmm…..

  The meeting of bankers and politicians on Jekyll Island in November 1910 laid the foundations for the Federal Reserve Bank. Three years later in 1913 the Fed was founded.

  From that moment on, private bankers were running the US monetary system including the printing of money. But the British pound, backed by gold until 1931, was the global currency of choice until then.

  

  CURRENCY SYSTEMS ARE EPHEMERAL

  The Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944 established a new currency system based on the dollar. From that time, all major currencies were pegged to the US dollar and the dollar itself was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. The dollar thus became the world’s reserve currency bolstered by big gold reserves. These were accumulated gradually from the early 1900s to the late 1940s. The US received payment in gold during WWII from its sales of arms and other supplies.

  As the chart below shows, the gold holdings grew from virtually nothing in the early 1900s to 22,000 metric tonnes by 1947. Over the following 25 years, 14,000 tonnes were sold and the US gold reserves are now alleged to be 8,000 tonnes.

  The 14,000 tonnes sold would today be worth a handsome $840 billion which certainly would have been useful in propping up the ailing finances of the US treasury.

  

  Most of the US gold was sold at a measly $35 per oz which tells that the US made an opportunity loss of $794 billion. And the people in charge of the Treasury and the Fed are supposed to be money experts. This tells us again that they don’t understand gold and they don’t understand history. They clearly don’t understand money either. Still they are only hired hands and temporary custodians of US gold and the US finances and never have to directly suffer the consequences of their actions.

  As Ayn Rand said:

  “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”

  In the current era of the golden calf and instant gratification, no leader, politician, central banker or commercial banker ever has to suffer the consequences of his own actions. Profits are always privatised and losses, without fail, socialised.

  Whatever deficits or debts a President or Prime Minister causes, the consequences when he retires are fees in the millions for just selling his name. And the bankers continue to collect their bonuses and options whatever losses they incur.

  So most of these individuals don’t ever have to bear the consequences of their actions. Instead normal people bear the consequences through taxes and decreasing benefits like pensions, healthcare and a much lower standard of living.

  US – 90 YEARS OF DEFICITS

  Since 1930, the US government has had budget deficits every year, except a couple of years in the 1950s and 1960s. The Clinton surpluses were fake due to false accounting.

  So for 90 years, the most powerful economic power in the world has been living on borrowed money and borrowed time.

  The consequences are blatant and for most people to see, if they care to look. But their government won’t tell them and the media is too ignorant to understand it.

  Probably not even 1% of Americans understand that their leaders and bankers are destroying their money on a daily basis.

  How many Americans would understand that since 1971 their US dollar has lost 98% of its purchasing power? Virtually nobody realises that the dollar only buys 2% of what it bought in 1971.

  And what did President Nixon tell his American compatriots in 1971 when he took away the gold backing of the dollar:

  “THE EFFECT OF TODAY’S ACTION will be to stabilise the dollar.”

  A DOLLAR FALL OF 98% SO FAR – ANOTHER 100% TO GO

  Hmmmmmm! The chart below shows how the dollar was stabilised. A 98% fall of the dollar doesn’t look very stable to me. Instead it looks chaotic and catastrophic!

  

  US DEFICITS ARE GROWING EXPONENTIALLY

  Back in 2016 when Trump was elected I forecast that the US debt would be $28 trillion at the beginning of the next presidential period in early 2021.  Few forecasters predicted an $8 trillion increase for the period after Obama. But I am no genius. The trick was easy. Just look at history. Since Reagan became president in 1981, US debt has on average doubled every 8 years. A simple extrapolation meant $28 trillion debt at the halfway stage and $40 trillion in 2025. But as the table shows below, I have now revised my forecast and am projecting $50 trillion by 2025.

  

  The US government is currently spending $7 trillion annually but the tax revenue is ONLY $4 trillion. So there is a neat annual deficit of a mere $3 trillion or 43% of the US budget.

  How can anyone believe that the US can repay a debt of currently $29 trillion and rising to $50 trillion with an annual deficit of $3 trillion – a deficit which is rising exponentially. The simple answer is that they never will repay it. Instead it will increase uncontrollably.

  As I said at the beginning of the article – Evil is the root of all fiat money as a 50 fold increase in the US debt since 1981 can only be achieved through corrupt means.

  And don’t believe that the Fed will really taper the $120 billion a month that they are printing. They have declared a $15 billion tampering programme but that is a FAKE TAPER as my colleague Matt Piepenburg wrote about.

  As expected they are cooking the books, giving with one hand and taking back with the other one – Plus ça change….. (the more it changes, the more it stays the same). 

  COVID – YET ANOTHER VARIANT WITH OMICRON

  So now the world has yet another Covid variant. It seems as every time Covid recedes another variant is invented appears. European countries are starting to lock down again. In the UK there were initially only 2 cases of the Omicron variant. Still, based on those 2 cases Switzerland implemented a 10 day quarantine for UK visitors and more countries are likely to follow.

  At this point, nobody knows the severity of the Omicron variant but still countries are locking down. It is believed that Omicron has around 32 mutations and that current vaccines might not be effective. So now Big Pharma will come up with a new vaccine to be taken in addition to boosters and normal annual flu vaccines. It is a wonderful position  for Big Pharma to be both expert advisor and beneficiary of Covid. The billions and trillions will keep rolling in.

  CONSEQUENCES

  We are not medical experts (there seems to be few impartial ones around) but we do understand the economic CONSEQUENCES.

  In September 2019, major central banks gave the signal that they “would do what it takes” to keep the financial system afloat.

  Covid which officially arrived early in 2020 was of course the most perfect excuse for starting yet another massive programme of unlimited money printing. Some people even believe that it was started deliberately but that could hardly be possible??

  Whatever the severity of new Covid variants, it is crystal clear that the world will suffer economically, financially as well as socially.

  In other words, all these additional problems are landing on a world which is morally and financially bankrupt. All the king’s soldiers and all the king’s printed money will not put this Humpty Dumpty world together again.

  A PERFECT RECIPE FOR DISASTER

  Let’s look at the ingredients:

  • Global debt of $300 trillion growing exponentially – it was $100t in 2000

  • Rapidly increasing deficits in most major and developing economies

  • $1.5t+ derivatives which will be worthless when counterparties fail

  • An Epic Everything bubble in all asset classes – Stocks, Bonds, Property

  • An asset bubble which will implode since it is based on fake money

  • Social and Moral decadence

  • No statesmen as leader in any Western country – so no chance of rescue

  • A flu of relatively modest proportions which will lock down the world for a 3rd year

  • A financial system which is on the verge of collapse

  • Inflation which will lead to hyperinflation

  • Fiat Money of ZERO value which is created hand over fist

  • A currency system which will lose 100% from here as history tells us

  The above factors are the inevitable consequences of a financial and currency system that was doomed to fail when it was first devised by a few bankers on Jekyll Island in 1910.

  As I said at the beginning of the article – Evil is the root of all fiat money!

  Greed is a cardinal sin and the bankers and politicians at Jekyll Island were definitely clear of the consequences of their actions. With more than 100 years of reaping the benefits and creating extraordinary fortunes for a few, they needn’t worry.

  But the rest of the world, that just has debt and no savings, is in for an extended period of misery.

  It is clearly very appropriate that the decision to take control of the money took place on Jekyll Island. If we look up the meaning of Jekyll we find:

  “A person with very different sides to their personality – one good and the other EVIL”!

  Clearly the appearance that the Fed would like to project to the world is the goodness of being the guardian and saviour of the financial system. The purpose agreed at Jekyll Island was the EVIL purpose to take control of the monetary system for the benefit of the private bankers who would own and control the Fed.

  MANY OF THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE

  I don’t like being a Cassandra predicting doom and gloom that few will believe.

  But these are the consequences that history teaches us time and time again. But sadly everyone thinks it is different today.

  Since every currency system in history has collapsed, it is quite a certain bet that this one will too.

  For the few who have savings, wealth preservation in physical gold and silver is essential as insurance against yet another failed currency and financial system.

  And for everybody it is important to remember that the most important things in life are family and friends. Helping others in difficult times is critical.

  Remember also that many wonderful things in life are free, conversations, books, music and nature.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 21:40

• Americans Panic-Buy RVs As Shipments Exceed 600,000 Units This Year And Next
  Americans Panic-Buy RVs As Shipments Exceed 600,000 Units This Year And Next

  Months after we discussed the “unprecedented demand” for recreational vehicles (RV), which we said was on pace for a blowout 2021 and expected to continue into 2022. A new RV Industry Association (RVIA) report has confirmed our suspicions: Americans continue to panic buy motorhomes. 

  RVIA’s latest quarterly report projects RV wholesale shipments will exceed 600,000 units in both 2021 and 2022, which is record-breaking demand as the virus pandemic has fundamentally changed how Americans vacation. 

  

  “RV manufacturers and suppliers have accomplished something never before seen with the incredible number of RV produced in 2021 and forecasted to be built in 2022,” said RVIA President & CEO Craig Kirby.

  “More RVs will be headed to dealer lots in 2022 than ever before, allowing even more consumers to experience the freedom and control of traveling the country in their ideal RV,” Kirby said. 

  RV shipments are expected to range between 593,600 and 610,800 units with an estimated year-end total of 602,200 units, a 40% increase over the 430,412 units shipped in 2020. RVIA said growth is expected to continue through 2022, with shipments ranging between 599,760 and 627,700 units.

  “The RV industry is looking at double-digit growth rates into mid-2022, due in part to low inventories, the strong financial standing of consumers, and the desire of consumers to get outdoors and experience an active outdoor lifestyle,” said Jeff Rutherford, RVIA Chair and President & CEO of Airxcel

  “Thanks to the RV manufacturers and suppliers, more consumers than ever before will be able to take advantage of all of the benefits of owning an RV,” Rutherford said. 

  This is the latest sign Americans, more than ever, are rediscovering national parks and rural communities in their RVs rather than vacationing in big cities and at resorts. The RV boom might continue past 2022 as demand by millennials has been steadily increasing. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 21:20

• Why Web3 Will Change Everything (In Plain English)
  Why Web3 Will Change Everything (In Plain English)

  Authored by Deep Pulusani via ‘Moment of Deep’ substack,

  This post was inspired by the following tweet and most popular reply:

  

  

  Some notes before we start: the term web3 today is sometimes used synonymously to mean cryptocurrency, blockchain tech, virtual reality/augmented reality & the metaverse. I find that people already have a more intuitive understanding of how VR/AR may change the future. Therefore, I’ll only be writing about how crypto & blockchain tech in the context of web3 will transform the future, since it’s a bit more challenging to understand and abstract in its concepts.

  Often this subject is explained with technical specifications or more commonly with political terms, ideas about liberty, decentralization, censorship, and power. These are all important; but what ultimately determines if web3 powered by crypto is the future lies in the economic and productive value it brings, the increases in quality of life it can achieve. These are the aspects I hope to make clear.

  

  Where we’ve come from and where we are

  All of the iterations of the web are digital revolutions, i.e. not only do more of our analog (physical) lives move to the digital realm, but new digitally native (digital-first) experiences are invented as well.

  Web1 (1990s): a revolution in information availability.

  Information and content from the real world is put online. Information is no longer a local phenomena nor a physical one, but is available for anyone with an internet connection to access. Early web protocols also allow for file transfers, emails, and web pages.

  Examples: personal web pages, Encyclopedia Britannica & Encarta online, FTP, MapQuest

  Web2 (2000-): a revolution in creation, experience, and connection.

  The static becomes dynamic, and a convergence of hardware and software technologies enable us to experience rich interfaces and interactions on the web. Our lives start to become increasingly digital – compare what percent of your daily attention is focused online in 1999, then 2009, and then 2019. The ecosystem and interface of web2 is now rich enough where people can spend the majority of their lives online – from their careers, relationships, hobbies, investments, etc. – we now spend much of our lives in digital space. We also consume most of our content digitally, create much of our output digitally, and connect most frequently with others through messaging apps and social networks.

  Examples: YouTube, Google Docs, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Robinhood, smart home & smart health devices

  Web3 (2015-): a revolution in coordination, ownership, and value transfer.

  I’ll break down each of these web3 revolutions in the ‘Web3 Paradigm Shifts’ section further below. It’s important to note first, however, that much of what will happen in web3 has its roots in web2. What’s often lost in all the web3 talk is that the web2 era is not over and will continue to produce enormous value and new companies. Let’s see how web3 powered by crypto is the next logical step to some of the revolutions of web2.

  Web3 Extensions of Web2.

  New and more powerful networks.

  In web1 times, your networks might’ve included your local community, your job, your family, and friends you grow up with. Maybe you were part of a mailing list or a forum if you were savvy online. In web2, networks proliferated rapidly, and continue to explode. You might have networks on FB, telegram groups, IG niches, corners of Twitter, or varied family/friend WhatsApp groups.

  This network creation continues in web3 with the introduction of the value network. Examples include Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, countless others – each currency representing its own individual network of users. In addition, you have the tokens built on top of these programmable currencies, tokens that any individual or business can issue. The result is a proliferation of value networks that are themselves nested into a larger, more powerful network that it can communicate with and transfer between. This is an extremely powerful new invention because a value network can be added to all of our existing networks in web2 – to our existing social networks, messaging networks, and content networks – or to brand new networks entirely. Essentially any network can be monetized, tokenized, or incentivized, creating supercharged versions of our already rich variety of networks.

  Explosion of creative activity, niches, and formats.

  Even if we just include web2 companies launched in the past few years alone – TikTok, Substack, Clubhouse, etc. – there’s so many creative and productive niches for individuals to occupy. Couple that with increasingly easier ways to distribute content among a proliferation of platforms (aka networks), it’s no wonder there has been an explosion of creative activity and individual power over the past 20 years. In the web1 world, we still mainly had movie stars and bestselling authors. In web2, we have stars and activists in every genre, category, and format you could ask for. What progresses in web3 is the further expansion of platforms, niches, and content types. Most notably, you will see more purely digital creation and digital reward (e.g. create an opera in a virtual world that’s monetized by a virtual currency that’s easily tradeable into other virtual currencies or goods). Furthermore, the platforms that creators and producers use will be less intrusive, less expensive, and more malleable than the monolithic platforms of today.

  Ease of global collaboration

  Cloud storage & editing, powerful front-end frameworks, and ever-increasing browser strength have made it possible to collaborate effectively with anyone, anywhere, and in practically any field. Figma and Airtable are just two examples of recent web2 companies that have accelerated the ease of collaboration with individuals halfway around the world. The pandemic has further accelerated this phenomena. With web3, we now have organizations that can be independently formed with no underlying platform dependence. These organizations, dubbed DAOs, can be both incentivized to work towards a common goal and govern themselves through tokenization. Anonymous, pseudonymous, or fully public individuals can have their work measured and verified through a publicly available blockchain.

  Disintermediation and distribution.

  Web3 will continue the trend of removing distance between producer and consumer. There is a continual disintermediation happening on the web. During web1, to release a successful music album you had to go artist → label → distributer → retailer → consumer. At each step there is profit loss and gatekeepers deciding whether you can continue onward to distribute. In web2 you got to go either 1-step closer (artist → label → platform → consumer) or 2-steps closer for those fully independent ( artist → platform → consumer). Web3 continues this disintermediation, as the platform merely becomes the underlying network or protocol the connection is made over (artist → consumer via protocol or network). There’s no longer gatekeepers or an expensive take-rate. There can still be curators to guide consumers (the difference being that a curator can make money independently of the artist’s margin). The end goal is that all service providers or product creators have the option to be connected directly with service seekers and product consumers.

  Disintermediation is only possible because of the increasing ability to self-distribute. In the past, middle men at each step were essential to ensure wide distribution. Web2 gave us powerful tools of self-distribution through platforms like Amazon, Shopify, Google Ads, Social Media, SoundCloud, etc. In web3, we can maintain all the tools of web2, but now we introduce tokenized systems. By creating tokens that somehow represent your business or art in your chosen way, early fans and early users become incentivized to spread your art by holding those tokens. Those fans will now distribute that art for you through their own individual networks and tools.

  Web3 Paradigm Shifts

  Users become owners.

  Employee stock options made many tech employees rich with the advent of web-first tech companies. However, for companies that rely on network effects – which is all social media, all sharing economy e.g. Uber, all marketplaces e.g. Amazon, all cloud tools, all games – the early users are equally as important. Without the early users, later users don’t join in, and a company never gains traction. Today, however, early users are not compensated for this essential contribution. In web3, through both fungible and non-fungible tokens, users & early evangelizers will win when a company wins too.

  In common press about web3, what’s often talked about is that we’ll now be compensated for our data. This is true – unlike our data being owned by the platforms (Twitter, FB, etc.) it will travel with us and be owned by us. However, the more valuable and scarce asset that users give over to apps is their attention, and this will be the far greater reward to users. Power users and heavy users of games, cloud tools, and content platforms, will eventually either be incentivized by the app or move on to companies that do incentivize their valuable attention.

  Any agreement becomes possible.

  At each era of the web, we can code increasingly powerful experiences (i.e. code becomes more abstracted from the binary 0s and 1s that the computer actually runs). When web2 rolled around, internet connections were fast enough and devices strong enough to have rich streaming & content experiences. In web3, the game-changing abstraction is smart contracts. Smart contracts essentially allow any agreement between individuals, groups, protocols, or mix of the bunch. Relying on the legal system to enforce billions of agreements small and large on the web is neither desirable nor realistic. A smart contract’s ability to allow for agreements between two untrusted individuals without burdening the legal system creates a major shift in a human’s ability to coordinate behavior and form agreements between groups. In web3, code enforces the agreements and the blockchain infrastructure protects against manipulation of this code. Smart contracts are natively digital, meaning they can be combined and stacked with other contracts to create powerful systems and infrastructures. The implications of this are not yet fully realized, but one hint to the power of smart contracts is the emergence of decentralized finance, which has disrupted a giant sector in a very short period of time. Smart contracts can now be embedded in all the software and hardware we use – any object can be embedded with operating rules, sharing terms, & financial agreements between parties. Combine this with the ability to interface with any other contract on the network, and the creative, collaborative, and productive uses of these contracts become limitless.

  Everything can be a financial instrument.

  People often ask why not just use fiat currency through PayPal or Stripe – what’s the functional point of an open-source digitally native currency like Ethereum? The answer is that you can program it, build on top of it, and integrate it with anything digital – whether a smart hardware device or a software application. Even everyday items like your chat groups, gifs, or your writing journal can be made into a financial instrument. That universe becomes bigger when imagine digitally native assets and services that have not even been invented yet. Any individual can perform this integration, not just institutions. Usually when people think of financial instruments, we think of ownership, of buying and selling. But these aren’t the only functions of financialization – we can integrate all financial functions including borrowing, lending, insurance, and merging. With financial functionality, also comes executive functionality, like governance and direction. Now imagine these functions available to any asset or network, both digital and physical.

  A new identity emerges.

  Tokens don’t necessarily have to represent money or value – we can use tokens to verify productive work done, or personal and career milestones reached. Because web3 transactions are stored on a publicly available network, our web3 wallet can not only represent transactions we’ve made and tokens we own, but organizations we’re apart of, events we’ve attended, people we know, content we’ve created, and work we’ve done. We can carry this history around to any app connected to the network that we grant access to. Those concerned with privacy never have to expose their physical identity, as wallets are simply avatars which maintain the right to hide or expose the physical identity behind it. Instead of our creative and productive output being spread out and siloed over various companies – LinkedIn, Twitter, IG – our web3 wallet can be carried with us wherever we go. Apps, games, and experiences can then interact with the specific identity the user brings to create tailored and one-of-a-kind experiences for the user’s history. Collaborators and employers can verify your expertise, your skill, your network, and things you’ve created or worked on through your wallet, without requiring a resume or contacting references.

  Postscript: Why did I write this?

  There’s something odd about writing articles that predict the future. If the writer is correct, the future is going to happen anyway, so what’s the point of writing an article about it now? What’s the point of another article hyping up a future that is certain?

  Because web3 is so widely misunderstood, the future is uncertain. The economic and productive value that web3 can bring is deeply threatened by governments and regulators around the world.  This is somewhat expected from authoritarian governments that will naturally crack down on web3 because of what it entails – shared equity and decision making, mass participation and organization – as retaining centralized power is essential to their literal survival. This has already become apparent in China. What’s essential is that major democracies, especially the world’s wealthiest USA and the world’s biggest India, foster the web3 experiment. It’s essential that we let things develop before overzealously legislating in the name of protection. Unfriendly governments could have firewalled the web1 internet and set progress back a decade because it was now easier for criminals to communicate and spread criminal information.  Undoing legislation and regulatory burdens is much harder than waiting to pass them in the first place. Web3 built on crypto has the possibility to be the major boon for wealth inequality (see paradigm shifts listed above), an issue all sides of the political spectrum claim to want to solve. Democratic governments: let’s let web3 grow, develop, and make mistakes. We’re still so early.

  *  *  *

  Follow me on twitter @momentofdeep for more content like this.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 21:00

• California To Cut Water To Cities And Farmland Amid Persisting Drought
  California To Cut Water To Cities And Farmland Amid Persisting Drought

  A severe drought has ravaged every county in California for seven months, forcing state officials to restrict water delivery next year to millions of Californians and hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, according to Bloomberg.

  Above-average temperatures and the lack of precipitation began in early February 2020, and by the summer, conditions worsened following heatwave after heatwave. Some of the state’s largest reservoirs registered near or at record low levels, which prompted some to believe state officials were preparing to announce the first-ever federally declared water shortage. Dry conditions also sparked one of the worst fire seasons on record as more than 8,000 fires charred 3 million acres. 

  The California Department of Water Resources is now prioritizing water delivery as the drought will persist well into 2022. Water delivery for 27 million Californians and three-quarters of a million acres of farmland will be affected. 

  “Despite a wet start to the water year, conditions have dried out since that first storm and we are still planning for a below-average water year,” Karla Nemeth, director of the department, said in a statement. “

  “That means we need to prepare now for a dry winter and severe drought conditions to continue through 2022,” Nemeth said.

  According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, much of the Golden State is in severe drought with large pockets of extreme and exceptional drought. 

  

  This year, the devastation unleashed on the state could compound into a megadrought next year if the winter remains dry. Much of the state’s water is derived from rain and snow in higher elevations north. Two-thirds of water demand comes from the southern part of the state. The inability for some farms not to receive water next year could be devastating and transform farmland into fallow land. We already noted some farmers reported receiving no water last summer. 

  As conditions worsen, California could be starring at “the second Dust Bowl.” If the winter remains dry, the probability goes up that state regulators will announce the first-ever federally declared water shortage. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 20:40

• Goldman: Are We Starting To See What The "New Normal" Looks Like?
  Goldman: Are We Starting To See What The “New Normal” Looks Like?

  By Goldman strategist Chris Hussey

  New Normal?

  US stocks traded sharply lower Friday, and on pace for another decline this week, as investors reacted to a new virus variant, strong business sentiment surveys, and Friday’s decidedly mixed labor report — and contemplated how to position into a now-volatile year-end.

  …is this what it looks like?

  As we leg further into the last month of 2021 and the post-pandemic era, this week may be raising the question: are we starting to see what the ‘new normal’ looks like?

  It’s not unreasonable to look at the Omicron variant as an anomaly that ‘surprises’ markets and represents a left tail risk. But after enduring the original COVID-19 outbreak followed by waves from the Beta and Delta variants, investors may be determining that COVID waves are becoming a regular thing — seasonal like the flu the perhaps.

  

  For now, we don’t yet know how much of an impact the Omicron virus will have, but what we might be learning is that the virus is still having an impact, even if that impact is not as great as it first was back in early 2020.

  And beyond the virus, this week may also have delivered a clearer view of what else may become ‘normal’ in the post-pandemic era: from inflation, to labor, shopping, sentiment and volatility. A few things to consider:

  • high inflation. Leading into this week, our economists revised our forecast for Fed Fund rate hikes to 3 in 2022, from 2, as inflation is remaining remarkably sticky. Fed Chair Powell’s testimony before Congress earlier this week only reinforced our view that the FOMC is concerned about high inflation. And high commodity prices are unlikely to provide a relief valve for inflation pressures as Jeff Currie discusses in the latest Commodity Watch. We now see a 28%+ total return for commodities over the next 12 months.
  • tight labor. Friday’s payrolls report revealed that fewer non-farm payroll jobs were added in November (210k vs 546k a month earlier) but also that fewer people are unemployed than expected (the unemployment rate fell to 4.2%). So while its tempting to look at the 210k new job adds as a disappointing indicator of US growth, the 4.2% unemployment rate may tell us more about the economy — everyone who wants a job, has one. Also interesting in Friday’s report, despite the ultra-low unemployment rate, wage growth moderated to +0.3% mom from +0.4% a month ago. But will wage pressures continue to ease in a world where so few are looking for a job but ‘Help Wanted’ signs seem to appear on every store you walk by? One other note on payrolls: from December 2011 through February 2020 (8 years+ of pre-pandemic data), monthly non-farm payroll additions averaged 200k (meet the new payrolls, the same as the old payrolls).
  • Black Friday now takes place on Black Monday. The post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping stats have been somewhat uninspiring, another reason, perhaps, to doubt the growth pace of the US economy. But Eric Sheridan and Kate McShane point out that people are still shopping, they just are starting their holiday shopping a lot earlier than they used to. Perhaps people are starting to shop on October 19th rather than November 29th. And our weekly retailer activity tracker continues to show strong shopping activity throughout November.
  • Business sentiment is very strong. On Friday, the ISM Services index was reported to have reached a new all-time high at 69.1. And the ISM Manufacturing Index rose to 61.1 in the latest survey — near its highest level in the last 10 years (only this past March’s spike to 64.7 exceeds November). Supply chain bottlenecks partly reflect the strong demand for industrial products and the inflationary impulse that such bottlenecks support. But the strong business sentiment may also reflect how Corporate America is adjusting to the ‘new normal’ of the post-pandemic era — and likes what it sees.

  Stock market volatility is high. In the past week, the VIX has spiked back up to 32, highlighting the uncertainty that is permeating around stocks now.

  

  As we wrote in Thursday’s Midday, “price discovery,” the spike in volatility appears to simply reflect the increased difficulty in determining the price of risk assets in a world of rising inflation, virus waves, and normalizing growth. And as we step into the ‘new normal’, perhaps such uncertainty is likely to persist such that volatility remains elevated for longer than we have seen in past cycles. One other note on the VIX: in the 3+ years prior to the pandemic from December 2016 through late-February 2020, the VIX had a median weekly level of 13. Since the VIX picked up on the pandemic risk in late-February 2020, the VIX has registered a median of 22.

  One last item for the ‘new normal’ file: rates. While the stock market is going through another bout of elevated uncertainty and a spike in the VIX, yields on 10-year Treasuries have retreated back to 1.36%, well above the lows we saw at the heart of the pandemic in 2020, but at the very bottom of the range we experienced in the post-Great Financial Crisis era. Praveen Korapaty forecasts that yields will rise to 2.00% by year-end 2022 but it is interesting to see that as the economy ‘normalizes’, yields on 10-year Treasuries are not pushing higher — even as inflation does. Inflation markets this week began to price in less inflation in the future — contributing to the lower 10-year yield. But regardless of the technical factors that may be holding rates down, an ultra-low 10-year Treasury yield has provided a good backdrop for stock price appreciation in the past – especially the Tech-laden, ‘long duration’ US stock market.

  Interesting fact: beyond the Tech-laden, ‘long-duration’ S&P 500, index returns this year have been quite a bit less impressive. The Russell 2000 Small Cap stock index, for example, is now up less than 10% for the year.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 20:31

• Citizens Continue To Exit High-Tax US States
  Citizens Continue To Exit High-Tax US States

  Authored by Andrew Wilford via RealClearMarkets.com,

  If you’re still wondering why raising the cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction was important enough to Democrats to sacrifice their stated principles and resort to brazen gimmicks in order to fit it into the reconciliation bill, look no further than the latest release of the IRS’s tax migration data, covering tax years 2018-2019.

  The data shows that certain states continue to alienate their own tax bases with punitively high taxes and uncompetitive business tax environments. High-tax states are losing taxpayers at an alarming rate, while states that tax their residents less aggressively are benefiting from their fellow states’ loss.

  

  The five states that lost the most taxpayers are not exactly known for fiscal restraint.

  New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts lost, on net, 219,937 taxpayers and over $28 billion in adjusted gross income (AGI). On average, these states have a state-local effective tax rate of 11.8 percent.

  The five states that gained the most taxpayers, on the other hand, are all low-tax states — in fact, three of the five have no state income tax.

  Florida, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, and Washington state gained, on net, 194,340 taxpayers and $28.9 billion in AGI, all while averaging a state-local effective tax rate of just 8.96 percent. Unsurprisingly, Florida is the big winner here, adding $17.5 billion in AGI to its tax base alone.

  But this phenomenon of taxpayers fleeing states that treat them like boundless sources of tax revenue is nothing new, and high-tax states aren’t learning their lessons anytime soon. Since the tax years covered by this data, New Jersey and New York have passed major income tax increases, while the other three states that lost the most taxpayers are seriously considering doing the same.

  And even with never-ending tax increases, many of these states are in dire fiscal straits. Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts stand out for their poor fiscal outlook due to debt and unfunded pension liabilities.

  If you’re thinking that these states should consider cutting back on spending rather than blissfully continuing down this death spiral, you wouldn’t fit in well among their policymakers. Instead, they’re counting on a reinstituted SALT deduction to pass the tax burden they place on their residents onto taxpayers elsewhere.

  Of the 10 counties that saw the largest benefit from the SALT deduction before it was capped, nine are in the five states that suffered the greatest net loss of taxpayers (the other is in Connecticut, which lost the 11th most taxpayers on net). These 10 counties lost, on net, over 35,000 taxpayers and $10.4 billion in AGI between 2018 and 2019, after the SALT deduction was capped.

  It’s easy to see, then, why high-tax states view the capping of the SALT deduction as an existential threat. Without the ability to write off their high state and local taxes on their federal tax returns, residents there face the full brunt of the tax burden imposed by the state.

  However, that’s far more of an indictment of the tax policies of high-tax states than it is a reason to reinstate the full SALT deduction. Tax liabilities reduced by the SALT deduction necessarily result in either higher taxes for other taxpayers or greater accumulation of debt. Either way, average taxpayers elsewhere pay.

  Instead of counting on the federal government to bail them out, states with uncompetitive tax structures should look inwards. When residents don’t feel like the taxes they pay are fair or reasonable, they leave for a state with more reasonable tax burdens. If high-tax states want to keep their residents, they need to recognize that fact.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 20:00

• Some US Colleges Start Requiring Vaccine Boosters For Students, Staff
  Some US Colleges Start Requiring Vaccine Boosters For Students, Staff

  Authored by Li Hai via The Epoch Times,

  Following booster shots recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some colleges are now requiring boosters for students and staff wanting to return to campus.

  

  On Monday, the CDC doubled down on its recommendation on boosters, saying all adults should get a booster shot.

  “Today, CDC is strengthening its recommendation on booster doses for individuals who are 18 years and older,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.

  “Everyone ages 18 and older should get a booster shot either when they are six months after their initial Pfizer or Moderna series or two months after their initial J&J vaccine,” Walensky said, adding that the emergence of the Omicron variant further emphasizes the importance of vaccination and boosters.

  

  Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, testifies to a Senate panel in Washington on Nov. 4, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

  On Tuesday, the first case of the Omicron variant in America was confirmed in California.

  On Wednesday, University of Massachusetts Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy announced that the university requires all students to receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot.

  “The vaccine booster, combined with the advance testing explained below, and ongoing wastewater testing, adaptive testing, convenient voluntary testing options, and our indoor mask requirement represent a comprehensive approach to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and ensure a safe and successful spring for our community,” Subbaswamy said in an email to students.

  The university will continue indoor masking requirements, but this will be reviewed later, the email stated.

  Some universities initiated a booster requirement earlier, doing so when the CDC expanded its recommendation of booster shots to include all adults—18 years and older on Nov. 19. Previously, CDC only recommended boosters to 65 years and older or those younger but with underlying medical conditions.

  On Nov. 23, Wesleyan University—a 3,200-student university located in Connecticut—announced that the university is requiring all students, staff, and faculty to get the booster shots by Jan. 14.

  “Vaccine booster shots are now available, and they offer an important additional layer of protection,” the university’s president Michael Roth said in a statement.

  The St. Joseph’s College of Maine announced as early as Oct. 4 that the school would require boosters. The Catholic college said the requirement would be implemented “on a rolling basis—as boosters become available, and as the list of recommended recipients expands.”

  As of Wednesday, the school has a 99 percent vaccination rate and a 56 percent booster rate. The school said that the indoor mask requirement would be lifted when an 85 percent booster rate is reached.

  More colleges are still considering whether to require boosters. Some colleges choose to “strongly” recommend it instead of requiring it for now.

  The University of Rochester said in an updated guidance Monday that it is not requiring students, faculty, and staff to receive a booster, but “it is strongly encouraged.”

  Duke University and Harvard University also “strongly” encourage everyone eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster.

  

  A nurse fills up syringes for patients as they receive their COVID-19 booster vaccination during a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination clinic in Southfield, Mich., on Sept. 29, 2021. (Emily Elconin/Reuters)

  Some experts don’t think there’s a need for young people to get a boost, especially young males.

  Jeremy Faust, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, sent a letter to CDC’s director in October, saying based on his analysis, for males ages 18-29, it seems that third doses of Pfizer are likely to cause more hospitalizations (due to myocarditis) than they will prevent (from COVID-19 breakthrough cases) in the coming 6 months.

  But CDC expanded eligibility for boosters to include people 18 years and older on Nov. 19 and further on Nov. 29.

  Gerri Taylor, the co-chair of the American College Health Association’s COVID-19 task force, said if CDC updates its definition of fully vaccinated to include booster shots, then “colleges might be more apt to require it.” Inside Higher Ed reported.

  The association has recommended that colleges require COVID-19 vaccination but hasn’t recommended requiring boosters yet.

  During Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters that currently, the definition of fully vaccinated doesn’t include a booster, but it could change.

  “We don’t know right now whether it should change, but it might,” Fauci added.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 19:40

• US Spy Planes Conducted Record Number Of Missions Near China, Beijing Think-Tank Says
  US Spy Planes Conducted Record Number Of Missions Near China, Beijing Think-Tank Says

  Reconnaissance aircraft operated by the USAF carried out a record number of flights over the South China Sea in November, according to data compiled by a Beijing-based think tank.

  The South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI) said U.S. spy planes carried out 94 sorties last month, a 25% increase from the February record of 75 flights. The think tank reported 80% of the flights were conducted by P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft, and the rest were MQ-4C surveillance drones and 8C air-to-ground surveillance aircraft.

  

  SCSPI’s data shows the most move active day was on Nov. 04, when the U.S. deployed ten spy planes across the region. The same day, the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group sailed through the South China Sea. 

  

  A Navy P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft flew over the Taiwan Strait on Nov. 29, an area where Beijing continues to unleash wave after wave of warplanes into Taiwan’s defense identification zone. The spy plane “was only about 15.91 nautical miles [29.46km] from the baseline of the Chinese mainland’s territorial waters,” the SCSPI report said, adding that the aircraft may have had their transponder turned off. 

  Last year, Beijing blasted the U.S. for concealing spy planes’ identities as commercial passenger planes. They said it’s common for USAF spy planes to impersonate the transponder code of civilian aircraft from other countries — calling it dangerous. 

  At the time, SCSPI said, “this undoubtedly added up to great risk and uncertainty to international flight safety, which could lead to misjudgment (by ground air defense systems) and probably bring danger to civilian aircraft especially those being impersonated.”

  Bloomberg spoke with a spokesperson for the U.S. 7th Fleet who said, “U.S. Navy ships and aircraft routinely operate within the international waters of the South China Sea, and are committed to supporting its network of alliances and partners and upholding a free and open Indo- Pacific.” 

  On Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian urged the U.S. to stop “severely infringing on China’s territorial security.” He said, “this is aimed at creating tensions and will drive the risk of regional conflict.”

  The last thing the U.S. and China need is a major foreign policy crisis. President Biden and President Xi Jinping don’t want conflict ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and ahead of next year’s 20th Party Congress in China and the U.S. midterm elections.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 19:20

• Elizabeth Warren Is So Very Wrong About Inflation
  Elizabeth Warren Is So Very Wrong About Inflation

  Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  Almost anyone who follows social media is familiar with the latest tweets by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has pronounced her verdict on higher food and gasoline prices: they are nothing less than the result of corporate greed. In fact, according to Warren, there is no inflation, only corporations arbitrarily raising prices in their relentless pursuit of … profits.

  

  In a November 21 interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, Warren declared (later placed on Twitter):

  Prices have gone up. Why? Because giant oil companies like Chevon and ExxonMobil enjoy doubling their profits. This isn’t about inflation. This is about price gouging for these guys and we need to call them out.

  Three days later, she outdid herself, declaring:

  Wondering why your Thanksgiving groceries cost more this year? It’s because greedy corporations are charging Americans extra just to keep their stock prices high. This is outrageous.

  To those familiar with Warren and her previous economic pronouncements, none of this is surprising. A decade ago, she declared that entrepreneurial successes are due to the government, not any decisions that entrepreneurs might have made, and her record in the US Senate speaks volumes to her economic illiteracy. That she should claim that all businesses have to do to increase profits is to raise prices is proof to her intellectual bankruptcy.

  Despite the title, however, this article is not about Elizabeth Warren’s economic viewpoints.

  However, in her declaration that no doubt plays well with progressives, she makes a specific claim: firms that wish to increase their profits and stock values simply need to raise the prices of whatever they sell.

  Warren’s claim raises an obvious question: If higher prices always lead to greater profits, why would any business owner pass up the chance for greater profitability? In fact, if high profits are tied directly to higher prices, then one would expect a cottage industry to spring up of class action law firms suing corporations for lowering their prices, since any firm is free to increase its profits at will. Doing anything less is dereliction of duty to shareholders.

  Not that I regularly follow Warren’s Twitter decrees, but I doubt seriously that she ever has praised any businesses when they lower their prices (oil companies often lower prices, not to mention technology firms). Since lower prices do not fit into Warren’s progressive narratives, it is doubtful that she even notices when that happens, and if we are to take her latest statements seriously, then we would have to believe that such an event could not happen because no profit-maximizing firm ever would impose losses upon itself when they are fully aware of a profitable alternative strategy.

  There are a number of fallacies in Warren’s antimarket missives, and I shall examine them from the Austrian viewpoint, specifically using Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State as the standard. I first look at her view of profits themselves.

  Like many American progressives, Warren seems to interpret business profits as an extraction of wealth from the community at large. Rothbard wrote about what he called the “altruists” as condemning profits:

  It is also peculiar that critics generally concentrate their fire on profits (“the profit motive”), and not on other market incomes such as wages. It is difficult to see any sense whatever in moral distinctions between these incomes.

  Indeed, progressives like Warren see markets in a starkly different way than do Austrians such as Rothbard. To Warren, markets are violent, predatory entities with no more moral standing than the Roman arenas. Rothbard, not surprisingly, differs:

  [C]ritics overlook the fact that the operation of the free market is vastly different from governmental action. When a government acts, individual critics are powerless to change the result. They can do so only if they can finally convince the rulers that their decision should be changed; this may take a long time or be totally impossible. On the free market, however, there is no final decision imposed by force; everyone is free to shape his own decisions and thereby significantly change the results of “the market.” In short, whoever feels that the market has been too cruel to certain entrepreneurs or to any other income receivers is perfectly free to set up an aid fund for him for depriving his fellowman of needed benefits. For the consistent altruist must face the fact that monetary income on the market reflects services to others, whereas psychic income is a purely personal, or “selfish,” gain.

  Entrepreneurial profits, Rothbard notes, do not come about because of nefarious behavior on part of the producers, but rather the good judgment successful entrepreneurs make regarding the present price of key factors of production and the predicted value of final products these factors help create. Writes Rothbard:

  What gave rise to this realized profit, this ex post profit fulfilling the producer’s ex ante expectations? The fact that the factors of production in this process were underpriced and undercapitalized—underpriced in so far as their unit services were bought, undercapitalized in so far as the factors were bought as wholes.

  One can imagine Warren and other progressives replying: “Maybe that is true in a theoretically competitive market, but oil companies and big food companies are not entrepreneurs, but rather are monopolies that regularly manipulate the market to their advantage. Their markets are not competitive, so they are free to set whatever prices they want and name their own profits.”

  While accusations of “market manipulation” by rapacious monopolies are common among progressives, identifying such actions of “manipulation” is difficult. The standard accusation is that these companies manage to keep supplies off the market, thus forcing up the prices of goods. The problem, of course, is identifying specific instances and also properly identifying scenarios in which such “manipulation” actually is possible.

  Take fuel prices, for example. If oil and gas companies were to hold back supplies in order to gain temporary price increases, they quickly would have to release those confiscated supplies back into the market (forcing down prices), as there are no secret storage areas that these companies possess that would enable them to set aside the massive quantities of fuel needed to accomplish what Warren and other progressives accuse oil and gas firms of doing.

  The only way fuel companies can make the kinds of windfall profits that Warren claims they are making is for them to experience either unanticipated surges in demand that overwhelm current supplies or for there to be external events that threaten future supplies and quickly increase the value of those present supplies. As I recently pointed out, the Joe Biden administration is attempting to cripple the oil and gas industries in the future in pursuit of its ill-advised green agenda, and one of the obvious effects of throwing down regulatory roadblocks and dangling criminal charges against fuel company executives for allegedly warming the earth is to ensure that future fuel supplies will be diminished. The upshot of such actions will be to force up the current prices of fuels. As I wrote in that article:

  While some have called this “regulatory overreach,” there is nothing surprising or shocking about this. The Biden administration response to anything it can tie to “climate change” is going to be heavy-handed and expansive, especially since regulators now believe they have been near-divinely appointed to bring better weather to planet Earth.

  The Biden administration’s actions have the effect of forcing up present prices because buyers know that the government’s attempts to cripple these industries will mean severely diminished supplies in the future. Such actions cause the value of current inventories to increase, which in the short term will boost industry profits. Since Warren openly supports the Green New Deal and other such measures, she is partly to blame for higher fuel prices even if she refused to admit she is part of the problem.

  To further emphasize this point, I use Rothbard’s examples to compare the government’s attempts to reduce production of oil and gas with the actions of coffee firms in Latin America to burn part of the year’s harvest to enjoy higher present prices. He writes:

  But is not monopolizing action a restriction of production, and is not this restriction a demonstrably antisocial act? Let us first take what would seem to be the worst possible case of such action: the actual destruction of part of a product by a cartel. This is done to take advantage of an inelastic demand curve and to raise the price to gain a greater monetary income for the whole group. We can visualize, for example, the case of a coffee cartel burning great quantities of coffee.

  In the first place, such actions will surely occur very seldom. Actual destruction of its product is clearly a highly wasteful act, even for the cartel; it is obvious that the factors of production which the growers had expended in producing the coffee have been spent in vain. Clearly, the production of the total quantity of coffee itself has proved to be an error, and the burning of coffee is only the aftermath and reflection of the error. Yet, because of the uncertainty of the future, errors are often made. Man could labor and invest for years in the production of a good which, it may turn out, consumers hardly want at all. If, for example, consumers’ tastes had changed so that coffee would not be demanded by anyone, regardless of price, it would again have to be destroyed, with or without a cartel.

  In the case of fuels, the oil and gas companies are not destroying present supplies or even hiding them in imaginary vaults. Instead, we have a government that does what it can to ensure that future supplies of these fuels will be less available and that firms are on notice that this particular president believes those companies should not even exist. And yet Warren and her colleagues are shocked, SHOCKED, that government-directed reduction of oil and gas supplies means higher present prices for consumers.

  Furthermore, contra Warren, we should expect fuel and commodity prices to rise substantially during periods of deliberate government monetary debasement (better known as inflation), as commodities historically have had wider price swings during periods of inflation and deflation and are very sensitive to changes in the value of the dollar. The markets for commodities like oil and crops are some of the most competitive markets to be found anywhere.

  Unfortunately, those that are most responsible for this current upswing in fuel and food prices are the same ones pointing blame elsewhere. Jacob Hornberger in his blog has noted that the Biden administration is taking a page from the Jimmy Carter administration more than forty years ago, which blamed higher prices on private enterprise. Hornberger writes:

  According to an article in the Washington Post, Biden is “considering whether to escalate an attack on parts of corporate America over rising prices…. The administration would amplify criticisms of large firms in heavily concentrated industries for passing higher prices on to consumers as they benefit from high profits”

  According to the article, “The White House took a step in this direction earlier this week, with Biden urging the Federal Trade Commission to escalate its investigation of anti-competitive behavior in the oil and gas industry, which the president alleged was leading to higher prices for drivers at the pump.”

  Readers like me who were adults during that time might remember that many in Congress and the media were calling for full nationalization of the oil industry, and that progressives of that era claimed (as they do now) that oil markets were not subject to ordinary laws of economics. That we have seen these things disproven over the past four decades means little to political, media, and academic elites who spew the same economic nonsense as they did in the 1970s.

  The explanations given by Austrians at that time, such as Murray Rothbard, still hold true today. We are seeing the natural results of massive monetary manipulation that dwarfs anything the Federal Reserve System and its government allies saw in the late 1970s and a new generation of progressives such as Elizabeth Warren are dusting off the old playbook and, with the help of elites of the mainstream media and academe, are spreading the old economic nonsense all the while destroying the fundamentals of a market economy. One likens them to the Bourbons of early nineteenth-century France after they were restored to power after the turmoil of the French Revolution and the Napoleon years. The French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand wrote of them, “Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié.” They have learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 19:00

• Dalio: "Dangerously High Risk" Of Civil War In America
  Dalio: “Dangerously High Risk” Of Civil War In America

  While he may be willfully blind (or worse?) to China’s human rights abuses (stoking a sharp rebuke from the likes of Mitt Romney), when it comes to domestic matters Billionaire Ray Dalio thinks there’s a “dangerously high risk” of civil war in the United States within the next decade due to an “exceptional amount of polarization” in the country.

  

  In his new book, “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail,” Dalio points to the six stages of an internal order/disorder cycle – and estimates that there’s a 30% chance of civil war.

  “For example, when close elections are adjudicated and the losers respect the decisions, it is clear that the order is respected. When power is fought over and grabbed, that clearly signals the significant risk of a revolutionary change with all its attendant disorder,” he writes, adding that “a vast number of people – including high-ranking officials, have openly doubted the validity of recent elections, and have expressed a willingness to fight for their beliefs.”

  Dalio also points to various studies showing that Americans are currently in an emotionally charged divide between political parties, according to RT. In one recent survey noted by Dalio, 15% of Republicans and 20% of Democrats thought the country would be better if the opposing political party “just died.”

  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 18:40

• World Health Organization Says "No Evidence" Booster Jabs Would Offer "Greater Protection" To The Healthy
  World Health Organization Says “No Evidence” Booster Jabs Would Offer “Greater Protection” To The Healthy

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  The World Health Organization has questioned the UK government’s decision to roll out hundreds of millions of booster jabs to its population, asserting there is “no evidence” they would offer “greater protection” to the healthy.

  

  UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid’s says the country has secured an additional 114 million vaccine doses for 2022 and 2023 to “buy time” and that everyone over the age of 18 will be offered one by the end of January.

  Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s emergencies program, questioned the logic behind this decision.

  “Right now, there is no evidence that I’m aware of that would suggest that boosting the entire population would necessarily provide any greater protection for otherwise healthy individuals against hospitalization and death,” he said.

  Ryan also noted that the UK was in a “luxurious position” of being able to offer booster shots to its entire population given that many poorer countries don’t even have even vaccines to give all their people one dose.

  UK medical authorities have also seized upon the Omicron variant to insist that more children receive vaccines.

  This is odd given that the variant has become noted for only causing “mild” symptoms in younger populations.

  Experts argue that dismissing Omicron as “mild” is dangerous because South Africa has a very young population (average age 27) and we don’t know how it will impact older people.

  They then say the solution is to vaccinate more younger people.

  Makes total sense.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 18:35

• Leapfrogging Legacy Banking To A Bitcoin Standard
  Leapfrogging Legacy Banking To A Bitcoin Standard

  Authored by Mitch Klee via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  How looking at the history of technological adoption can give us insights into where Bitcoin could be embraced the fastest…

  

  INTRO

  Throughout time, technology has proven to change our lives by leveraging efficiencies in energy. New ways in how we hunt have saved time and energy for innovation and to live more intentionally. Currently, Bitcoin presents an immense opportunity to change the lives of those who are burdened by old forms of manipulated money and preserve their time and energy. It is the first self-sovereign, programmable money that is proving to destroy expectations of every “expert” imaginable. At the intersection of money and technology, Bitcoin’s network effect is spreading like a mind virus to all corners of the globe. This is not a coincidence but the manifestation of a zero to one moment; a radical new technology that will change nearly everything it touches.

  This article explores the idea that some regions and nations have a higher susceptibility to adoption in new monetary networks. Specifically, I will outline how the unbanked populations of emerging countries can leapfrog legacy systems, straight into a new monetary standard. But first, let’s lay the groundwork for understanding how this can happen with some concepts.

  DEMOCRATIZATION OF TECHNOLOGY

  To understand leapfrogging, let’s first look into something that naturally happens when humans produce technology: the democratization of technology. As we make technology, the cost reduces, while the ease of production increases. Our tools get better, people’s skills improve, securing the material for production gets easier, logistics improve, and everything is less costly as humans continue increasing the output/yield over time. Simply put, cost goes down, while production goes up.

  

  Figure 1.

  A great example is the printing press. Before this innovation, each book had to be typed out or written one by one and distributed almost by osmosis. This means books were more expensive and were only in the hands of the few. After the printing press, people were able to automate a portion of the process by creating blueprints of the books. This cut down labor costs, and there was a huge explosion in printed material. This may have put people out of work; but it also introduced better dissemination of information to a wider group of people and new opportunities to produce more books for less cost and effort.

  Another example is photography. Historically, taking photos on film took hours to produce in a dark room. The film had to be brought to a local expert and it would take several days to get back the finished product. Smartphones and photoshop technology made this essentially free. It was then possible to download an app or use the built-in app on smartphones, take pictures, and immediately process them. Democratization of technology has been happening across every single aspect of human society since the beginning of time. Humans create tools to make it easier and cheaper to survive. Each tool becomes better, we then expand and evolve with less energy improving the quality of life.

  Fast-forward to the internet age. Emerging countries are just now tapping into the power of the internet. Although there are many factors underlying the reasons for expansion, one thing that is known is that technology builds on itself, making each successive technology easier to produce. Not only is there growth, but there is exponential growth. Certain times throughout history, technology has made such a large leap forward that it allows extremely poor countries to skip the legacy technology and quickly adopt the new one. This is called leapfrogging.

  LEAPFROGGING EXPLAINED

  Leapfrogging is when the cost to produce one technology is too great for a population, so when a new, drastically cheaper technology is created it’s quickly adopted and the old tech is skipped. This is the coexistence and benefit of separate populations within society. Let’s look at the mobile phone revolution as a way to explain leapfrogging. Some societies did not have the wealth or infrastructure to adopt landlines and phone communication when it was brand new, but when the mobile phone was introduced, this gave mostly everyone around the world the ability to opt-in.

  

  Figure 2. Landlines in the U.S., 1900–2019.

  Figure 2 shows the number of landlines in the U.S. population from the 1900s to 2019. Throughout the entirety of the 20th century, the landline was being adopted in the U.S. Consequently it only took a decade to dethrone this old technology. The decline started when the benefit of cell phones outweighed the cost compared to landlines. This is where democratization hit the tipping point and we saw a huge jump from one technology to the next. Now it’s extremely cheap to use technology that is 100 times or even 1,000 times more advanced than the previous. Mobile phones usurped landlines because they were more affordable, easier to use and more mobile. Figure 2 shows how quickly a society can adopt a technology that has significantly more benefits than the previous, even in an advanced society.

  A similar thing is happening with television and the internet. Netflix came out and disrupted how people consume media on the television. As more platforms emerged, and people realized they could pay a fraction of the cost for a Netflix subscription rather than $100 for cable and a bunch of commercials, the switch was easy. Legacy systems were bogged down by all of the brick-and-mortar stores and overhead costs. They could not compete and pivot quickly enough, so they lost their seat at the table.

  

  Figure 3. Number of telephone subscriptions in the U.S. versus worldwide.

  When comparing fixed telephone subscriptions to other countries, the U.S. was way ahead of most. Many factors were contributing to this. Wealth played a huge part, but much of it was the production and first movers’ advantage. The U.S. was the first country to set up telephone lines from Boston to Somerville Massachusetts and expanded from there. Other countries did not have this opportunity, so they were laggards in the technology simply by default. It also made it easy to have a grid to run on top of, being a technologically advanced country with a power grid. Because it was so resource-heavy to set up this grid, this took over 30 years to build up the infrastructure.

  

  Figure 4. Landline subscriptions compared to GDP per capita, 2019.

  One of the main reasons why it was so hard to increase telephone subscriptions in other countries is because of the initial cost. You can’t just tap into a telephone line, there needs to be a large grid, infrastructure and companies/governments willing to build out this grid. Figure 4 shows that there is a rough line at a GDP per capita of $5,000 to get off zero and start communicating via landline. As the GDP per capita grows in a country, it is more likely they adopt fixed landlines. This is a huge barrier to entry as they try and compete to be a part of the 21st century. With telephones, it brings an easier flow of information across long distances quickly. These are important technologies that helped first-world countries advance quicker than their counterparts. This technology could mean the difference between surviving and thriving in the modern era.

  

  Figure 5. Mobile phone subscriptions versus GDP per capita, 2019.

  Things get much different when you start looking at mobile phones in Figure 5. To have a mobile phone is drastically cheaper than having a landline, all costs considered. Before, you needed the infrastructure and everything that came with installing a landline phone. But with mobile phones, even at a GDP per capita of less than $1,000, you get ~50% penetration of adoption within the population. All of the countries that were left out of communication with landlines, now have leapfrogged the old technology, right into a new standard of mobile phones.

  People benefit, businesses benefit and countries benefit immensely from these technologies. With mobile communication, people have higher leverage over their energy output. Businesses and life in general are more efficient, in turn creating a higher GDP for the country. It is a feedback loop that is good for all of humanity. When one group of people creates new technology, everyone benefits at one point or another.

  FROM LANDLINES TO MOBILE PHONES TO INTERNET-CONNECTED SMARTPHONES

  Not only are poorer countries leapfrogging into mobile phone communication, but they are, in turn, jumping right into the internet age. On top of that, (Android) smartphone costs are dropping significantly every year, with the average cost down by 50% from 2008 to 2016. With the growing ability to connect with the rest of the world comes more opportunities to learn and grow with the rest of the world. An incredible amount of information is available on the internet, and the benefit of being on the network is immeasurable.

  

  Figure 6. Mobile versus landline subscriptions, worldwide, 1960–2019.

  When comparing the numbers of mobile phone users to the numbers of landlines, you get a huge disparity in the pace at which they were adopted. Fixed landlines were around for almost 50 years before they started to see some real competition. Thinking back to our Figure 5, this makes sense, because the cost to build infrastructure is drastically higher than that of mobile phones. The opportunity a landline brought to civilization was immense, but the cost-effective mobility of cell phones transcends previous communication technology by a longshot.

  As of September 2021, the world’s population was ~7.89 billion people. Of that, there are 10.5 billion cell phones with network connections. That is 2.52 billion more activated phones than there are people. This becomes thought-provoking when adoption data starts to reveal where mobile phones are headed next.

  As people adopt mobile phones, smartphones are becoming cheaper and more abundant. The cost of production for smartphones is less and less each year, and soon there will be little reason to have a cell phone without internet connection because the cost difference will be so minuscule. Smartphone abundance is allowing people around the world to tap into the internet and it is estimated that “by 2025, 72% of all internet users will solely use smartphones to access the web.”

  

  Figure 7. Share of the population using the internet, 1990–2019.

  Currently, the world is in a transitionary period of communication. Not all of the world has access to the internet, only 65%, with an increasingly rapid pace of adoption. Because it is so inexpensive to get a mobile phone, and the benefits are immense, the world is being onboarded at an incredible rate.

  To answer the question “What is Leapfrogging?” we can look directly at mobile phones. But it’s not just one leapfrog, it’s more of a continuous onboarding to the digital revolution for the entire human population. Things are getting cheaper, and technology is moving exponentially forward, toward a more connected future. Soon, everyone will have access to the internet and will bring about new and exciting opportunities for the world to grow. With the high rate of adoption in communication technology, mobile phones swept across low-GDP countries allowing information to spread. Smartphones are a small hop away from mobile phones. With smartphones comes all sorts of opportunities not to mention the connection to the world’s internet. In developing countries, the internet is starting to hit its hockey stick moment. Adoption continues to grow and as smartphones get cheaper, more people in the world have access to the internet, connecting them to their local and global economies and new innovations will come about in unforeseen ways.

  This begs the question, what monetary network will they use to transact in the digital age? It’s taken years to get the legacy banking system up to speed. We’ve bootstrapped and “Frankensteined” many different ways to connect the internet to a centuries-old banking infrastructure, but these newly onboarded countries have the opportunity to skip that altogether. With no legacy banking infrastructure rooted within the nation, this leaves the door wide open for a new legacy.

  LEAPFROGGING ONTO A BITCOIN STANDARD

  It seems the stage is set for a paradigm shift. A perfect storm is brewing in populations that lack bank accounts and access to store their wealth. Coupling this with connection to the internet, and 21st-century e-commerce and monetary system, it is impossible for countries not to adopt it. Because bitcoin is a global asset with no intermediaries, its infrastructure is inherently global. Any improvements to the network, the entire world will benefit automatically without having to update the old tech. Unlike landlines, there is no infrastructure to build, and the barrier to entry is almost zero. You just opt in with a bit of hardware and an internet connection.

  As of 2017, according to the World Bank, there are 1.7 billion adults in the world without a basic transacting account. Most of these countries with higher rates of unbanked are poor, have high rates of inflation and lower currency stability, not to mention a disconnected state government ripe with problems. This is extremely common when looking at currencies in other low-GDP countries. So, what are some of the biggest factors in which people would want or need to adopt Bitcoin? If we can answer this question, then maybe we can quantify and pinpoint which countries have the biggest opportunity and most to gain from adopting a Bitcoin standard.

  

  Figure 8. World’s most unbanked countries (Source).

  Figure 8 shows the top-10 most unbanked countries as of February 2021. The Oxford dictionary defines “unbanked” as “not having access to the services of a bank or similar financial organization.” Much like building the infrastructure for landlines, it’s expensive to build banks and serve the local economy. Not to mention, many of the people living in these countries don’t have the amount of money that would warrant the cost of owning a bank account. Some even share bank accounts with members of their families to save on costs. There is a huge opportunity to solve the problem of banking in low-GDP countries, but many of the digital banking companies around the world are constrained by regulation and geographical jurisdiction. It may be hard to grasp the importance of a bank account having never lived without one, but without a bank, citizens cannot secure funds safely. Without secure funds, the future is uncertain. This is where Bitcoin can solve some of the problems in these less developed and emerging countries. There are three specific ways in which these problems could be solved.

  1. Bank the Unbanked

  Bitcoin gives everyone the ability to be their own bank with something as little as a cell phone. All that’s needed is to be connected to the network and accept funds. The smartphone does all of this. It allows people to download a bitcoin wallet, connect to the internet and start transacting. There are many ways in which one can use this wallet. Coincidentally, the countries above who have low banking numbers within their population, also have mobile phones and high internet penetration. This is an open door from a technological standpoint, allowing people to opt into Bitcoin and secure their funds digitally.

  In addition to using the Bitcoin network to transact on your phone, you can also use it as a cold storage solution. Cold storage is similar to a savings account. This savings account or cold storage is disconnected from the internet, making it harder for people to steal your funds. With the old technology of banks, you would have to pay for this solution, but with Bitcoin, it’s free, just download the software and/or buy a hardware wallet. There are some cold storage solutions where you can pay for a hardware device, but creating a phone wallet and securing your keys, gives the people an entry point and on-ramp to storing their wealth in a digital bank.

  2. Securely Store Value Over Time

  The second opportunity is the store of value function. Many of the countries that have unbanked populations and poverty issues are a result of a currency problem. In my previous article, “Bitcoin As A Pressure Release Valve,” I wrote that certain countries have hyperinflated currencies with no option but to turn to the black market. Most of the time, these countries use the U.S. dollar to transact since it holds its value better relative to their currency. Strictly from a monetary standpoint, bitcoin is scarce. It is the most scarce form of money there is. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin in existence and when the value rises, the production does not increase. This is called elasticity or the lack of elasticity in bitcoin’s case. Unlike fiat money, no government, central bank or agency can print more. And unlike gold, silver or any other commodity, when the demand rises, the amount that is mined stays the same. The first completely inelastic asset in existence is a result of preprogrammed architecture, with consensus in the network that’s default is to not change the protocol.

  People that live in countries where the money is known to be manipulated, understand Bitcoin almost immediately. When the idea of something that can’t be manipulated is presented, the concept of scarcity and 21 million is understood. With the reality of incorruptible money, the current regime in power can’t stuff their pockets without alienating the population through force. These people understand this idea because they have experienced it firsthand. When food prices rise faster than people can spend a weekly budget on groceries, it is immediately apparent the importance of a completely scarce, un-manipulatable asset.

  In developed countries with low levels of unbanked, people have ways of storing their wealth. They have a 401k and IRA, and most people own property. This is a way of storing value over time. It may not be completely efficient, but it is sufficient enough to escape some level of inflation. The alternative would be to keep your dollars in a savings account, and the real yield of that is negative and not a smart way to store money. These countries put money in financial devices, because it is the smart thing to do and it preserves time and energy. Unbanked countries have no way of storing long-term value. It is degraded and evaporated through manipulation and high levels of money printing. Emerging countries cannot store time and value into financial instruments. There is no Apple stock or S&P 500 to put money into. They are stuck with low levels of wealth that are stolen away on an ever-moving treadmill. There is no way of truly saving value or energy spent over time.

  For the first time, Bitcoin gives the world, particularly those in emerging countries, the ability to hold their value in a closed system that cannot be inflated. Much like the opportunity the mobile phone brought to change communication, bitcoin is the first “store of value” that is available for low-GDP countries to buy and hold. It allows them to securely transfer their wealth over time, without fear of inflation or confiscation. Add on top of that, if they need to transfer wealth out of the country and flee an oppressive regime, bitcoin is the first asset that gives the ability to do so. Large amounts of gold cannot be taken on a plane or property and homes cannot be transferred to another country. Bitcoin gives people the freedom to do what they want with their earned value, without fear of a centralized power removing it. Bitcoin preserves the fundamental human right of property.

  3. Connection to the Digital Economy

  The third problem Bitcoin solves is connecting and transacting digitally. Being a digitally native asset, bitcoin smooths the rails of commerce allowing low-GDP countries to join the 21st century of commerce. This is huge, and what cell phones did for communication, digital commerce will do the same. It immensely increases our ability to transact and exchange value. Bitcoin allows anyone, anywhere, to join a digital transacting network and exchange value natively over the internet, whether in person or without knowing them at all.

  Digital economies move at the speed of light, while old-school economies move at the speed of osmosis. This brings more time and efficiency for people on both ends of the transaction. Businesses spend less time on transactions, widen their addressable market, and start putting more time and effort into other things that can improve their work. It is the difference between transacting daily in cash and using a preprogrammed point of sales system. It is simply better.

  Not only does Bitcoin make things easier and frees up more time, but it is programmable money. Like the internet, Bitcoin can be built in layers. Each layer brings a new way to use it that widens the possibilities and use cases. What the internet did for communication, Bitcoin will do for money.

  Combining all three of these factors, you get a massive magnetic pull toward adoption of the new technology. It is hard to slow the movement of technological adoption and impossible to stop. Like throwing a match on a tinder-filled hillside, years of opportunity build up in countries that lack technology where innovation and adoption prepare to explode at the right moment.

  QUANTIFYING BITCOIN ADOPTION IN LOW-GDP COUNTRIES

  

  Figure 9. LocalBitcoins and Paxful Vietnamese dong (VND) combined volume in Vietnam (Source).

  Looking at every one of the top-10 countries from Figure 8, they all have meaningful adoption in Bitcoin and it is growing every week. Not only is Vietnam number two on the unbanked list, but it is also number one on the “Chainalysis 2021 Global Adoption Ranking.” In fact, looking at Figure 10 of adoption through LocalBitcoins and Paxful, USD volume shows that every one of the countries in the top-10 list of unbanked have meaningful adoption.

  

  Figure 10. LocalBitcoins and Paxful Vietnamese dong (VND) combined volume.

  What does this tell us about Bitcoin adoption in unbanked countries? It tells us that it’s working. Continuing to see these trends improve will be good for Bitcoin adoption and not to mention the countries in which they are adopting it. All the ingredients are there. Most are unbanked with high internet access and an unreliable currency that isn’t natively digital. All you need is time for the adoption to take hold.

  There are also some concerns that come up when thinking about Bitcoin adoption. Like, “How can they adopt bitcoin when it is so volatile?” Well, there are a few solutions to this problem. The first is that when a population has no choice, something as volatile as bitcoin could mean the difference between losing 30% or losing 90% over the span of one year. Keep in mind that bitcoin is already solving three of the major problems listed above, we are just remedying the problem of volatility.

  First, look at just bitcoin and its use cases today. For some countries, their currency is just as volatile if not more volatile than bitcoin. Not only that, but it is volatile to the downside, continuing to lose value as the government steals and prints away spent time and energy. If bitcoin were to be used, sure it might be volatile, but this volatility is either short lived, or it’s to the upside.

  Now look at bitcoin while using it for everyday transactions through Strike, as a more technical solution. This solution is currently available now in El Salvador as a test case and is starting to roll out to more and more countries. People use the Bitcoin and Lightning rails every single day but transact in USD, choosing to either save in bitcoin or not. This solution gives the best of both worlds. One, a population has the ability to transact short term in a currency that isn’t volatile, like other emerging countries. Two, this gives access to the payment rails of Bitcoin and the ability to save in the most scarce asset in existence. Looking back historically, bitcoin has grown at a 200% compound annual growth rate and this has the opportunity to conserve and grow wealth immensely. For someone in a developing world, this is life changing.

  As this trend of adoption in underbanked countries continues, new and exciting ways where Bitcoin is used will emerge. For the first time in history, countries have the ability to store wealth in something that cannot be stolen. It gives the opportunity to transact freely without the permission of the state or government, and it allows people to break free from imposed serfdom. Bitcoin is here and it is only getting bigger. There is a change in the tides of time, and Bitcoin is a once-in-a-millennia technology that is pulling the shores.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 18:20

• Russia's Lavrov Warns Blinken Of Return To Military Confrontation "Nightmare"
  Russia’s Lavrov Warns Blinken Of Return To Military Confrontation “Nightmare”

  On Friday top Ukraine officials continued sounding the alarm over what they believe is a large-scale mustering of Russian troops aimed at prepping an invasion of eastern Ukraine. 

  “Our intelligence analyses all scenarios, including the worst,” Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, told parliament on Friday. “It notes that the likelihood of a large-scale escalation from Russia exists. The most likely time to reach readiness for an escalation will be the end of January.” He said more than 94,000 Russian soldiers have massed across the border. 

  

  The charge comes two days after Moscow turned the accusation around, saying that it’s actually Kiev that has now stationed half the entire national army in Donbass. The Kremlin called Ukraine’s rhetoric and actions “excessively inflamed and dangerous”, and suggested the flurry of ratcheting allegations this week are designed to provoke Russia.

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said in Stockholm that Western allies have expressed “tremendous solidarity” to take action in the event of a Russian offensive in Ukraine.

  Given this atmosphere of escalating accusations and fears of direct confrontation, the Russian foreign ministry is urging immediate deconfliction. Likely there will be engagement between the Pentagon and Russian defense officials. Over a week ago, on Nov.23, the heads of the Russian and United States militaries held a rare phone call in efforts to deescalate the soaring tensions in eastern Europe.

  In his latest comments Friday, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov asserted that NATO is refusing calls to de-escalate the crisis: 

  “NATO refuses to consider our proposals on de-escalation of tensions and prevention of dangerous incidents,” Lavrov said, accusing the US-led bloc of rejecting constructive discussion.

  “On the contrary, the alliance’s military infrastructure is moving closer to Russia’s borders… The nightmarish scenario of military confrontation is returning.”

  Blinken and Lavrov separated by about 25 feet and a large flower arrangement. pic.twitter.com/RypogEMcAC

  — Nick Wadhams (@nwadhams) December 2, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  He actually met with Blinken on the sidelines of conference of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), held in Sweden:

  At a European security conference in Sweden, Mr Lavrov floated the idea of a new European security pact to try to stop Nato from expanding further east.

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of “serious consequences” if Russia sought conflict with Ukraine.

  Moscow has repeatedly denied that it’s preparing any kind of military offensive against Ukraine. It’s leader have said that troop movements within its own sovereign borders shouldn’t be cause for any other country’s concern. 

  Meanwhile, Russia remains on edge while again finding itself in the international spotlight of the West’s accusations: “As tensions rise, Russia said on Thursday it had arrested three suspected Ukrainian security service agents,” BBC reported of the latest incident. “One of the three was accused of planning a terrorist attack, while the other two had been seeking to gather intelligence, Russia’s Federal Security Service said.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 18:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Escobar: The NATOstan Clown Show
  Escobar: The NATOstan Clown Show

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

  American hysteria over the “imminent” Russian invasion of Ukraine has exploded every geopolitical Stupid-o-Meter in sight – and that’s quite an accomplishment.

  What a mess. Sections of the U.S. Deep State are in open revolt against the combo that remote controls Crash Test Dummy, who impersonates POTUS. The neocon-neoliberal axis is itching for a war – but has no idea how to sell it to an immensely fractured public opinion.

  

  UKUS, which de facto controls the Five Eyes spy scam, excels only in propaganda.

  So in the end it’s up to the CIA/MI6 intel axis and their vast network of media chihuahuas to accelerate Fear and Loathing ad infinitum.

  Russophobic U.S. Think Tankland would very much cherish a Russian “invasion”, out of the blue, and could not give a damn about the inevitable trouncing of Ukraine. The problem is the White House – and the Pentagon – must “intervene”, forcefully; otherwise that will represent a catastrophic loss of “credibility” for the Empire.

  So what do these people want? They want to provoke Moscow by all means available to exercise “Russian aggression”, resulting in a lightning fast war that will be a highway to hell for Ukraine, but with zero casualties for NATO and the Pentagon.

  Then the Empire of Chaos will blame Russia; unleash a tsunami of fresh sanctions, especially financial; and try to shut off all economic links between Russia and NATOstan.

  Reality dictates that none of the above is going to happen.

  All exponents of Russian leadership, starting with President Putin, have already made it clear, over and over again, what happens if the Ukro-dementials start a blitzkrieg over Donbass: Ukraine will be mercilessly smashed – and that applies not only to the ethno-fascist gang in Kiev. Ukraine will cease to exist as a state.

  Defense Minister Shoigu, for his part, has staged all manner of not exactly soft persuasion, featuring Tu-22M3 bombers or Tu-160 White Swan bombers.

  The inestimable Andrei Martyanov has conclusively explained, over and over again, that “NATO doesn’t have forces not only to ‘counter-act’ anything Russia does but even if it wanted to it still has no means to fight a war with Russia.”

  Martyanov notes, “there is nothing in the U.S. arsenal now and in the foreseeable future which can intercept Mach=9-10+, let alone M=20-27, targets. That’s the issue. Same analytical method applies to a situation in 404. The only thing U.S. (NATO) can hope for is to somehow provoke Russia into the invasion of this shithole of a country and then get all SIGINT it can once Russia’s C4ISR gets into full combat mode.”

  Translation: anything the Empire of Chaos and its NATO subsidiary try in Donbass, directly or indirectly, the humiliation will make the Afghanistan “withdrawal” look like a House of Gucci dinner party.

  No one should expect clueless NATO puppets – starting with secretary-general Stoltenberg – to understand the military stakes. After all, these are the same puppets who have been building up a situation which might ultimately leave Moscow with a single, stark choice: be ready to fight a full scale hot war in Europe – which could become nuclear in a flash. And ready they are.

  It’s all about Minsk

  In a parallel reality, “meddling in 404” – a delightful Martyanov reference to a hellhole that is little more than a computer error – is a totally different story. That perfectly fits American juvenilia ethos.

  At least some of the adults in selected rooms are talking. The CIA’s Burns went to Moscow to try to extract some assurance that in the event NATO Special Forces were caught in the cauldrons – Debaltsevo 2015-style – that the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, with Russian help, will concoct, they would be allowed to escape.

  His interlocutor, Patrushev, told Burns – diplomatically – to get lost.

  Chief of the General Staff, Gen Valery Gerasimov, had a phone call with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen Mark Milley, ostensibly to ensure, in Pentagonese, “risk-reduction and operational de-confliction”. No substantial details were leaked.

  It remains to be seen how this “de-confliction” will happen in practice when Defense Minister Shoigu revealed U.S. nuclear-capable bombers have been practicing, in their sorties across Eastern Europe, “their ability to use nuclear weapons against Russia”. Shoigu discussed that in detail with Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe: after all the Americans will certainly pull the same stunt against China.

  The root cause of all this drama is stark: Kiev simply refuses to respect the February 2015 Minsk Agreement.

  In a nutshell, the deal stipulated that Kiev should grant autonomy to Donbass via a constitutional amendment, referred to as “special status”; issue a general amnesty; and start a dialogue with the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

  Over the years, Kiev fulfilled exactly zero commitments – while the proverbial NATOstan media machine incessantly pounded global opinion with fake news, spinning that Russia was violating Minsk. Russia is not even mentioned in the agreement.

  Moscow in fact always respected the Minsk Agreement – which translates as regarding Donbass as an integral, autonomous part of Ukraine. Moscow has zero interest in promoting regime change in Kiev.

  This charade has come to a point that – diplomatically – is quite unprecedented: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lost his Taoist patience.

  Lavrov was forced, under the circumstances, to publish 28 pages of correspondence between Moscow on one hand, and Berlin and Paris on the other, evolving around the preparation of a high-level meeting on Ukraine.

  Moscow was in fact calling for one of the central points of the agreement to be implemented: a direct dialogue between Kiev and Donbass. Berlin and Paris said this was unacceptable. So yes: both, for all practical purposes, destroyed the Minsk Agreement. Public opinion across NATOstan has no idea whatsoever this actually happened.

  Lavrov did not mince his words: “I am sure that you understand the necessity of this unconventional step, because it is a matter of conveying to the world community the truth about who is fulfilling, and how, the obligations under international law that have been agreed at the highest level.”

  So it’s no wonder that the leadership in Moscow concluded it’s an absolute waste of time to talk to Berlin and Paris about Ukraine: they lied, cheated – and then blamed Russia. This “decision” at the EU level faithfully mirrors NATO’s campaign of stoking the flames of imminent “Russian aggression” against Ukraine.

  Armchair warriors, unite!

  Across NATOstan, the trademark stupidity of U.S. Think Tankland rules unabated, congregating countless acolytes spewing out the talking points of choice: “relentless Russian subversion”, “thug” Putin “intimidation” of Ukraine, Russians as “predators”, and everything now coupled with “power-hungry China’s war on Western values.”

  Some Brit hack, in a twisted way, actually managed to sum up the overall impotence – and insignificance – by painting Europe as a victim, “a beleaguered democratic island in an anarchic world, which a rising tide of authoritarianism, impunity and international rule-breaking threatens to inundate”.

  The answer by NATOstan Defense Ministers is to come up with a Strategic Compass – essentially an anti-Russia-China scam – complete with “rapid deployment forces”. Led by who, General Macron?

  As it stands, poor NATOstan is uncontrollably sobbing, accusing those Russian hooligans – scary monsters, to quote David Bowie – of staging an anti-satellite missile test and thus “scorning European safety concerns”.

  Something must have got lost in translation. So here’s what happened: Russia conclusively demonstrated it’s capable of obliterating each and every one of NATO’s satellites and blind “all their missiles, planes and ships, not to mention ground forces” in case they decide to materialize their warmongering ideas.

  Obviously those deaf, dumb and blind NATOstan armchair warrior clowns – fresh from their Afghan “performance” – won’t get the message. But NATOstan anyway was never accused of being partial to reality.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/03/2021 – 00:00

• Singapore Power Prices Spike 1,290% As Energy Crisis Emerges 
  Singapore Power Prices Spike 1,290% As Energy Crisis Emerges 

  The global energy crisis continues to worsen with its latest victim Singapore. Power prices in the Southeast Asian country saw a dramatic surge in wholesale power prices. 

  According to Bloomberg, provisional Uniform Singapore Energy Price jumped S$4,499 ($3,293) per megawatt-hour, the highest on record or about a 1,290% jump in the last few days. Just on Tuesday, prices were S$323.61 ($236.60). 

  

  The dramatic price increase in wholesale power reflects the persistent global energy crisis. It doesn’t help when 95% of the country’s electricity is generated by burning natgas. All of the natgas is imported from neighboring countries.

  With the Northern Hemisphere winter just weeks away, Singapore’s electricity prices are likely to remain elevated as natgas demand continues to strengthen across Europe and the rest of Asia, due in part to La Nina conditions producing unseasonably colder trends.

  There’s word that limited gas supply from Indonesia has already resulted in turbine trips, or emergency shutdown of power generation turbines, at some Singapore power plants. 

  Julius Wiratno, deputy for operations at Indonesia oil and gas regulator SKK Migas, told Bloomberg that gas flows from Indonesia to Singapore are at “minimum demand levels” as supply is limited.

  “Almost all of the independent retailers were forced out of the market, leaving a significant number of consumers previously on fixed price tariffs at the mercy of the spot market,” Whistler said.

  Singapore has resorted to bringing back combined-cycle gas turbine capacity in the event of more turbine trips to mitigate a collapse of its power grid. 

  A spike in power prices might not have a tremendous impact on households, considering a majority of them are under fixed-rate contracts. Still, it could unleash pain for companies that tend to be on variable contracts. 

  Considering Singapore’s power grid is mostly powered by natgas, we suspect this is not the last we’ll hear about soaring power prices as winter fast approaches. We first noted the energy crisis was going globale back in September. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 23:40

• How Migrant Surge At The Border Fuels Massive American OD's From Tiny Grains of This Killer Drug
  How Migrant Surge At The Border Fuels Massive American OD’s From Tiny Grains of This Killer Drug

  By Vince Bielski, published originally in RealClearInvestigations.com

  On a September afternoon, Allyssia Solorio wondered why her energetic young brother hadn’t emerged from his bedroom in their Sacramento, Calif., home. When she opened his door, she saw 23-year-old Mikael leaning back on his bed with his legs dangling over the side. She rushed to her brother and shook him, but to no avail. He was dead. A counterfeit pharmaceutical pill laced with illicit fentanyl had killed him.

  Mikael Tirado was one of an estimated 93,331 overdose fatalities in the United States last year – an all-time high. Nearly five times the murder rate, the deadly overdose toll was primarily caused by fentanyl, a highly lethal synthetic opioid. It’s manufactured mostly by Mexican cartels with ingredients imported from China, and then smuggled over the southwestern U.S. border. Fentanyl has been arriving in larger quantities each year since at least 2016.

  The cartels are taking advantage of law enforcement weaknesses and policy failures to smuggle record amounts of the lethal drug into the United States, according to interviews with half a dozen current and former drug and immigration agents. While a lack of screening technology to find contraband at ports of entry and an inept U.S-Mexico campaign to cripple the cartels are longstanding issues, there’s also a new one: the flood of migrants across the border that the Biden administration has done little to stop.

  Former law enforcement officials say the cartels are orchestrating the surge, overwhelming the capacity of agents to pursue drug smugglers. They can freely enter Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California carrying fentanyl while agents are diverted to the time-consuming duty of apprehending and processing migrants.

  Frustrated border agents and their union have been calling on Congress to send reinforcements. But help is not on the way. The administration’s upcoming budget request doesn’t include funding for more Customs and Border Protection agents.

  In September, tensions boiled over after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris lashed out at agents on horseback in response to videos showing them blocking Haitians crossing the border. Harris compared the incident to the mistreatment of slaves, an inflammatory accusation that the union strongly denied, saying no migrants were hit or hurt.

  The administration is pivoting away from law enforcement and embracing a public health approach to the fentanyl crisis. It has proposed spending $11.2 billion – a huge increase over last year – to expand substance abuse prevention, treatment and recovery services. Fewer addicts would mean fewer deaths from fentanyl.

  But curbing opioid addiction is very challenging. The vast majority of substance abusers avoid treatment, according to researchers, and only about one-third of those receiving long-term medical care fully recover. These success stories, however, will be offset if the supply of fentanyl continues to boom and fuel more addiction.

  “Drug treatment is very important, but you can’t treat someone in the morgue who just died from fentanyl poisoning. It’s too late,” says Derek Maltz, the former director of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s special operations division, which primarily targets cartels.

  “We have to vigorously attack the production labs in Mexico and increase border security on our side.”

  Cartels have turned to fentanyl because the super-potent powder is cheap to produce, making it more profitable than heroin, says Eric Triana, an assistant special agent in charge at the DEA division in New York. Two of Mexico’s most powerful crime groups – the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels – manufacture the synthetic drug in rustic clandestine labs. In the U.S., the powder is mixed with heroin to stretch supplies.

  To boost sales, cartels have more recently increased production of counterfeit pharmaceuticals. They are made with fentanyl but labeled to look exactly like legitimate medications such as Percocet, Vicodin and Xanax.

  

  The fake pills, which are promoted and sold on social media platforms as real pharmaceuticals, are priced to sell at a discounted rate of about $20 each. They have brought the dangers of fentanyl to mainstream America, with victims belonging to every age, class and racial group. Nationwide, DEA agents seized an unprecedented 9.5 million fake pills — some portion of that total in every U.S. state in the first nine months of 2021, or more than the last two years combined. That prompted the agency to issue a rare public safety alert in September.

  Fentanyl’s potency – at 50 times the strength of heroin – is what makes it so deadly. Two milligrams, which can fit on the tip of a pencil, can kill. But cartels don’t take precautions to make sure the pills aren’t lethal. DEA analysis found that 40% of the seized pills had a potentially deadly dose.

  “I saw the devastation that heroin brought to Baltimore as a young police officer,” Triana says. “But fentanyl is a more potent deadly threat. It’s frightening.”

  Crime groups have gained complete control of the Mexican side of the 1,950-mile border, directing the flow of both migrants and drugs. The Gulf Cartel runs the region around Brownsville, Texas, and moving west to California, the Cartel of the Northeast, Juarez Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel have staked out turf, says Victor Avila, a former supervisory special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who specialized in human and narcotics trafficking.

  Diversion Game at the Border

  They operate openly as if they were the Mexican military. Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which has recently expanded operations, even slaps a “CJNG” logo in big letters on its military-style trucks and uniforms as part of a show of force.

  

  The surge of migrants that began in 2019 and accelerated after Biden took office has been a boon to these violent enterprises. The migrants are coming from Eastern Europe and Africa as well as Central and South America, lured partly by the administration’s policy that allows unaccompanied children and families to stay in the states while they apply for asylum, according to border agents who have interviewed them. In addition to paying cartels between about $2,000 and $9,000 each to cross, migrants are also used as decoys in drug smuggling operations.

  Equipped with encrypted communications and satellite technologies, crime organizations are precisely orchestrating the timing and location of the border crossings of large migrant groups as part of a diversion tactic, several officers say. Dozens of agents are forced to leave their posts guarding many miles of the border and at checkpoints on roads to assist with apprehensions of the groups.

  The cartels work with spotters in the Halcon network to identify these wide security gaps along the border and send drug smugglers on foot through them undetected.

  A Call for More Agents

  “The illegal alien flows are so big that the Border Patrol has to leave hundreds of miles of border unprotected,” says Avila. “This absolutely means more fentanyl has been entering the country in the last few years.”

  The smugglers make their way across tough terrain to one of hundreds of stash houses located near roads in the border region. The drugs are then placed in cars and driven through often unguarded checkpoints and across the country.

  Rather than pursue these smugglers, many Border Patrol agents are handling the crush of migrants entering the U.S. They apprehended more than 1.7 million this fiscal year, or six times the 2017 number. (That doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands who got away, according to Border Patrol estimates.) Agents deport most of the single adults. But they have to assist in transporting, processing, housing and feeding the unaccompanied children and families who are placed in border patrol facilities for weeks before they are released into the U.S. to pursue asylum claims.

  In the busiest border areas, such as Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio, as many as 30% of agents are pulled from the frontlines to deal with the migrant overflow, says Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. Texas is trying to fill the security void by deploying hundreds of state troopers and the National Guard in Operation Lonestar, a $1.8 billion effort. They have seized 127 pounds of fentanyl this year through early September.

  The Trump administration was able to tamp down the number of migrants crossing the border by forcing them to remain in Mexico while they applied for asylum. Biden ended that program, calling it inhumane, and the administration is now fighting a court order to reinstate it.

  Judd says as long as Biden’s asylum policy is in place, the Border Patrol, which has about 14,000 field agents covering both coasts and both land borders, needs thousands more to help secure the Southwest flank. Pleas to congressional leaders for help, made by Judd’s union and former Border Patrol chiefs, have gone unheeded.  

  “If you are not going to change the policy, then give me more manpower to stop the drugs,” Judd says. “But Democrats control Congress, and while some of them are fairly good on border security, it isn’t a priority for a majority of them.”

  So far this year, CBP has redeployed 400 agents from the northern and coastal areas to the southern border – not nearly enough to fill the gaps, Judd says.

  In a statement to RealClearInvestigations, a CBP spokesperson said the agency continues to evaluate the need for more agents and pointed to drug busts as evidence of strong enforcement. Border and customs agents seized 10,000 pounds of fentanyl this fiscal year, according to agency data. That’s five times the catch in 2018. But agents say more seizures actually indicates that more of the deadly drug is entering the country since they have only been capturing an estimated 10% to 15% of the total.

  Most of the fentanyl is pouring over the Southwest border at the U.S. ports of entry, particularly in California, a favorite route for smugglers. The challenge for customs agents at the controlled inspection ports in four states is very different than the cat-and-mouse pursuits of the Border Patrol: How to find illegal contraband in vehicles without slowing trade with Mexico worth hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

  The San Ysidro port in California between San Diego and Tijuana is the busiest land border crossing in the Western Hemisphere. The 70,000 vehicle passengers headed north every day through the port have to wait in long lines of traffic for an hour, on average. Nearby, the thousands of commercial trucks that go through the Otay Mesa port daily have even longer waits.

  

  Customs agents are in a fix. They are under pressure to efficiently clear trucks from Mexico carrying fruits, vegetables, electronics and other goods for entry into the U.S. But that priority to avoid costly commercial delays is in constant conflict with the need to stop and search the vehicles for illicit goods.

  More often than not, smugglers get waved through without a search. “Transnational criminal organizations take advantage of the chaos and clutter at the ports of entry that are dealing with so much legitimate trade and travel,” says Victor Manjarrez, a former Border Patrol supervisor and now a security expert at the University of Texas at El Paso.

  Cartels have the confidence to go big at the border. In August, a Mexican tractor-trailer driver attempted to cross at Otay Mesa with 2.8 tons of methamphetamine and fentanyl hidden among plastic household goods. Agents scanned the cargo using an X-ray-like machine and saw what they described as “anomalies” inside the trailer. Then a canine team sniffed out narcotics worth $13 million. It was the largest ever meth bust along the border.

  Customs agents would arrest more smugglers if they were equipped with basic scanning technology used in the huge Otay Mesa seizure. It helps them quickly make better decisions about which vehicles to inspect manually, a process that can take hours. CBP says it has been deploying more large-scale scanners at ports of entry in the last two years.

  Remarkably, only 15% of trucks were scanned at Southwest ports of entry in 2019, according to a CBP report. And less than half of them received any formal inspection because customs agents have to move too rapidly through the snarl of waiting traffic, says Manjarrez.

  Many of the 328 U.S. ports also need to be expanded and modernized to reduce wait times to allow for more inspections. The Biden administration is asking Congress for $660 million for upgrades, or enough to improve only a handful of the old ports. Otay Mesa’s $144 million expansion plan alone would absorb almost a quarter of this new funding. “It’s really only a down payment for what is needed,” Manjarrez says.

  ‘Hugs, Not Bullets’ in Mexico

  More agents and technology would “absolutely make a bigger dent” in the flow of fentanyl over the border, Manjarrez says, but not stop it. Agents say Mexico also has to begin targeting the hundreds of cartel production labs to further cut the supply.

  “Destroying the labs has to be a top priority because, without them, the cartels can’t continue to kill our kids,” says Maltz, the former DEA organized crime specialist.

  But President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ended Mexico’s military campaign against cartel leaders two years ago. Soldiers captured and killed many kingpins, but the crackdown also unleashed a reign of violence that Lopez Obrador pledged to blunt.

  The populist president is pushing his “hugs, not bullets” agenda to reduce poverty in the hope that it will eventually curb the appeal of drug smuggling. Meanwhile, the cartels, facing little government resistance, have continued to expand their hold on territory and corrupt lawmakers, according to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a scholar focusing on nonstate armed actors at the Brookings Institution.

  The clout of the cartels was made clear in 2020 when U.S. agents arrested a former Mexican defense secretary for taking bribes to protect the ultraviolent H-2 Cartel. Outraged officials pressured the U.S. to return Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda to Mexico where prosecutors promptly exonerated him.

  The more lasting damage to drug enforcement came when Mexico passed a law in response to Cienfuegos’ arrest. Maltz says it froze DEA’s operations in Mexico by requiring agents to pass sensitive intelligence through a central foreign affairs office that they believe is corrupt.  

  “The cartels control Mexico. All of it,” says Avila, the former ICE agent who survived gunshot wounds in an ambush with a cartel. “They are running a parallel government.”

  The U.S. Plays Nice

  With the U.S. drug enforcement imperiled, Felbab-Brown has called on the Biden administration to “get tough” with Mexico. In January she urged the administration to use financial support as leverage to compel Mexico to target mid-level cartel operatives and their corrupt government protectors to avoid the bloodshed that comes with taking down bosses.

  But the State Department is taking a conciliatory position, essentially backing Lopez Obrador’s economic development strategy in an agreement between the two countries announced in early October.

  

  At a joint press conference, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the countries had relied too much on security forces to try to weaken the cartels. Over the past decade the U.S. has spent $3 billion to arm and train the Mexican military and police as part of the Merida Initiative. During that time, drug trafficking into the U.S. increased. A new agreement will replace Merida, making job creation in poor communities and drug treatment and prevention top priorities, Blinken said.

  The countries did agree to pursue the cartels, particularly by curtailing the illegal supply of U.S. arms into Mexico and money laundering activities. But the prosecution of cartel members isn’t the priority. Mexico Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the success of the agreement won’t be measured by how many drug lords go to jail.  

  The administration’s strategy has plenty of backers in the criminal justice and public health professions. “I’m sympathetic to the argument that Mexico is on the border with the largest consumer of fentanyl and cocaine in the world,” says Bryce Pardo, a drug policy specialist at Rand Corp. “We could do more to reduce our insatiable appetite for drugs.”

  In the meantime, more fentanyl smuggled into the U.S. means more deaths. Triana, the DEA special agent, estimates that the number of overdose fatalities this year will either be on par with or exceed 2020’s.

  Allyssia Solorio, the sister of the Sacramento man who died from fentanyl, has become an activist to raise awareness of the dangers of the illicit drug. The former postal worker says law enforcement must play a larger role.

  “President Biden can do a lot more to shut down the smuggling of fentanyl over the Mexican border,” she says.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 23:20

• New York Crime Figures Return To "The Bad Old Days Of The 1980s"
  New York Crime Figures Return To “The Bad Old Days Of The 1980s”

  A few days ago, we reported that Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, had reported its 500th murder of the year in a case of domestic violence.

  But Philadelphia isn’t the only major American city grappling with a surge in violence. NYC, Philadelphia’s coastal neighbor, has also seen a surge in violent crime in the nearly two years since the start of the pandemic, as we have repeatedly reported.

  Outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio seems more than happy to let his successor, Mayor-elect Eric Adams, a former police officer and Brooklyn Borough President, deal with the city’s new crime problem. But as overall crime has continued to rise after last year’s surge (while murders have declined only slightly from last year’s extremely elevated rate), a gruesome stabbing in Brooklyn has captured the city’s attention.

  40-year-old Ernest Diaz was found dead late last week outside the lobby of an apartment building on 99th Street in the neighborhood of Bay Ridge. Surveillance footage was enough for police investigating the killing to arrest 56-year-old Vitor Bauza, who was charged Saturday with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

  Diaz reportedly lived with Bauza, who initially fled the scene, before turning himself in to the police the following day.

  Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Edgar Walker ordered Bauza to be held without bail until his next court appearance on December 3. Speaking outside of a Brooklyn courthouse on Sunday, Bauza’s lawyer Arthur Aidala confirmed that his client had known Diaz ‘for a very, very long time,’ and called the gruesome murder ‘an aberration’ and ‘so out of character for him.

  CCTV video of the attack was posted online by the Daily Mail:

  Prab Singh, 31, who runs a liquor store nearby, told the New York Daily News that Diaz exited the apartment building naked and covered in blood after being stabbed in the foyer.

  “I looked outside and the guy was just sitting at the front door covered in blood, just red all over,” Singh said. “One of our clients called the police and ran to help him and bring him back inside, but was unsuccessful when she tried to move him.” ‘came out from the apartment building naked.’

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 23:00

• Iran Hails "Fruitful" Vienna Nuclear Talks; Israel Asks Biden To Urgently Suspend Dialogue
  Iran Hails “Fruitful” Vienna Nuclear Talks; Israel Asks Biden To Urgently Suspend Dialogue

  Four days into restarted nuclear deal talks in Vienna, and Iran’s top negotiator, Ali Baqeri-Kani, has issued a rare positive statement Thursday saying that discussions have so far been “fruitful”. Despite complaints alleging that outside entities – Israel in particular – are attempting to “poison” the possibility of reaching a restored Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Baqeri-Kani said the Islamic Republic is determined to see a deal materialize. 

  The top Iranian diplomat said he had “fruitful discussions with Grossi aimed at continuation of technical cooperation between Iran and IAEA” – in reference to the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Rafael Mariano Grossi. However, he emphasized “now the ball is in the court of the Americans. The Americans must remove the sanctions.”

  

  The Iranian side has still stuck firmly to its up-front demand of immediate US sanctions relief, pointing out that it was the US that unilaterally broke the deal under Trump starting in 2018. Baqeri-Kani was cited in state media and international reports further as confirming “the resolute intention of Iran to actively and positively engage in the talks in Vienna.”

  But Biden administration officials are still expressing deep skepticism, after the recently installed Ebrahim Raisi government was accused of stalling talks which had been off for months since mid-summer, with the charge being it was in order to buy more time to covertly ramp up nuclear development and uranium enrichment.

  Israeli leaders especially have charged Tehran with using the Vienna process as a “cover” to make advances toward nuclear weapons – something which Iran has vehemently rejected. On Thursday Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told Secretary of State Tony Blinken in a phone call that the Iranian nuclear talks should be immediately halted. 

  While Israel has long been on record as opposing any restored JCPOA deal, this is the first time it’s openly and directly urged the White House to not even enter talks:

  “Iran is engaged in nuclear blackmail as a negotiation tactic — this must lead to an immediate suspension of the talks in Vienna and to harsh retaliation steps by the world powers,” Bennett told Blinken, according to a statement from his office.

  #Israel‘s prime minister told @SecBlinken today, “#Iran is carrying out nuclear blackmail as a negotiating tactic, and this should be answered by the immediate halt to negotiations and the implementation of tough steps by the world powers.”https://t.co/tgDgEJcNlY

  — Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) December 2, 2021

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  Perhaps because of this renewed Israeli pressure, Blinken has been cautious in his assessments: “I have to tell you,” he began from the sidelines of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), “recent moves, recent rhetoric, don’t give us a lot of cause for optimism.”

  He added in the fresh statements: “But even though the hour is getting very late, it is not too late for Iran to reverse course”, referencing that Iran remains in breach of uranium enrichment caps and other steps it took after the US pulled out and ramped up the sanctions pressure.

  “In the very near future, the next day or so, we will be in a position to judge whether Iran actually intends now to engage in good faith,” Blinken added.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 22:40

• Goldman Offering "Burnt Out" Employees New Benefits, Including Sabbatical And Paid Bereavement Leave
  Goldman Offering “Burnt Out” Employees New Benefits, Including Sabbatical And Paid Bereavement Leave

  The latest chapter in the “do anything to make our bankers happy so they don’t quit and/or make another public slide deck” saga comes from the halls of Goldman Sachs.

  The bank is reportedly implementing new worker benefits in order to combat employee burnout, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

  It’s part of a continued push to retain employees at a time when the nation is facing a historic labor shortage and power has shifted to the workers in many industries.

  The investment bank is going to now be offering “paid leave for pregnancy loss” and is “expanding the amount of time employees can take for bereavement leave,” the report says.

  Goldman will also be offering unpaid sabbatical for its long time employees and removing a one year waiting period before matching employee 401(k) contributions.

  Goldman’s head of human resources, Bentley de Beyer, told the WSJ: “We wanted to offer a compelling value proposition to current and prospective employees, and wanted to make sure we’re leading, not just competing.”

  Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, commented: “Taking a sabbatical is not the kind of thing that super-engaged executives do.” But, he says, it might help give employees “peace of mind” to have, even if they don’t use it. 

  But while some banks are still coddling their employees, others are starting to pump the brakes. Recall, just days ago we wrote that Morgan Stanley executives were pushing their junior bankers to get back into the office. 

  

  Chris O’Dea, a Morgan Stanley managing director, said on a conference call to employees last week: “If you’re 21 to 35, you are nuts not to be in the office all the time.”

  Executives at the bank are pushing for their younger employees to ditch Zoom in favor of suiting up like the old days and getting into the office, the NY Post reported this week. 

  Gorman said earlier this year he would be “disappointed” if staff wasn’t back at their desks by Labor Day. He also threatened a pay cut for those who didn’t come back to the office.

  This year, we have been writing extensively about the effort Wall Street banks have gone to in order to try and retain talent. Earlier this year, we noted that Evercore was now paying its junior bankers up to $120,000 per year. Second year analysts at Evercore will make $130,000 and third year analysts will make $140,000. 

  Guggenheim has also raised its first year analyst pay to $110,000. First-year analysts across the global corporate and investment banking, markets, and research at Bank of America will now receive $100,000 per year, up from $95,000. Second year analysts will make $105,000 per year and third year analysts will make $110,000. 

  Months ago we also noted that Jefferies announced it was going to be raising pay for its first year analysts in the U.S. to $110,000. The bump in pay is a raise of $25,000 from their previous starting salary of $85,000 per year. Second year analysts will make $125,000, up from $95,000 and third year analysts, called associates, will move up to $150,000 per year from $125,000. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 22:20

• SEC Chair Gensler: Bitcoin Competes With The US Banking System
  SEC Chair Gensler: Bitcoin Competes With The US Banking System

  Authored by ‘NAMCIOS’ via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  • Bitcoin is an “off-the-grid” alternative to the traditional financial system, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said.

  • Gensler joined former SEC chairman Jay Clayton on Wednesday to talk about Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and ETFs.

  • Issuers should “come within the investor protection remit” to launch a spot BTC ETF in the U.S., Gensler said.

  

  Bitcoin is a competitor to the U.S. banking system and its worldwide consensus, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler said on Wednesday.

  “We layered over our digital money system about 40 years ago with money laundering and various sanctions and regimes around the globe; we layered that over a digital currency system called our banking system,” Gensler said.

  “In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote this paper in part as a reaction, an off-the-grid type of approach. It’s not surprising that there’s some competition that you and I don’t support but that’s trying to undermine that worldwide consensus.”

  Gensler’s remarks came during the DACOM Summit 2021, a compliance and market integrity event live-streamed on Wednesday. The SEC chairman joined Jay Clayton, who was in Gensler’s shoes as the commission’s head a few years past, for a conversation around Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, digital assets, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and decentralized finance.

  BITCOIN, THE DOLLAR, AND DIGITAL ASSETS

  Throughout the conversation, the SEC chairman kept drawing a dividing line between Bitcoin and digital assets. While Gensler did not vouch for one or the other, he acknowledged their differences, highlighting the securities-like nature of many projects.

  “These have largely been about raising money for entrepreneurs, and as such, meet the time-tested definition of an investment contract and thus falls under the securities laws,” Gensler said, referring to the many tokens being created and traded worldwide outside of his regulatory scope.

  Gensler has said time and again how he views the cryptocurrency sector as a “Wild West.” He urged the “gatekeepers” of the many cryptocurrency projects in existence to “find a path to register and get within the investor protection remit.” Such projects, “whether it’s a trading platform or token,” he added, are “not going to evolve well outside of the tenets of public policy.”

  When talking about digital assets, Gensler commented how, in his opinion, such developments already exist and don’t demand decentralization to function. The SEC chairman also drew a parallel between the U.S. dollar and the concept of digital currency, downplaying their differences.

  “The U.S. dollar, the euro and the yen, and most of the public companies, are digital,” he asserted.

  “You buy and sell stocks that are digital, you buy and sell treasuries that are digital; there is no physical treasury debt any longer. I tend to call these digital assets.”

  However, Gensler didn’t outright remove the right of other digital assets to exist. Ultimately, he said, investors should decide what’s worthy of investing their money in. Still, he demands clear and straightforward information on each project’s objectives with their offerings.

  “At the core of our bargain in the securities markets is: investors get to decide what risks they want to take. But the people raising the money, the issuers, should share full and fair disclosure,” he said, adding that while the value proposition is “for the market to decide,” it must be “within public policy frameworks.”

  Gensler highlighted the importance of “full and fair disclosure” in the perspective of “investor protection and fraud prevention.” If these digital assets fail to come under the regulatory umbrella of the SEC, he added, there could be financial instabilities in the future.

  “We’re gonna have a ‘spill in Aisle 3’ and…it might be a financial instability event, or come from stablecoins, or by the investing public getting hurt by fraudsters or good-faith actors promoting and raising money,” the commission’s chairman said. “And the investing public didn’t, in hindsight, get enough information.”

  “The innovations around DeFi could be real, but they won’t persist if they stay outside of the public policy frameworks,” he added.

  On stablecoins, Gensler equated them to “poker chips at the casinos,” highlighting how the majority of the movement in that sector has been done inside trading platforms.

  “They were initially brought forward to make the trading platforms more efficient, but it also allowed people around the globe to avert money laundering and tax compliance in jurisdictions,” he said.

  The SEC chairman also shared that his commission is collaborating with sibling agencies such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in figuring out how different tokens should be treated by U.S. markets and its regulatory body.

  “We’re working together to sort through that,” Gensler said.

  “But right now the public is not protected as it could be and as I believe it ought to be in this space. Technologies don’t long persist outside of public policy norms; people get hurt, trust is diminished. It’s far better to bring it inside the policy frameworks, and that’s what we’re going to try to do at the SEC.”

  WHEN WILL THE SEC APPROVE A SPOT BITCOIN ETF?

  When asked about bitcoin ETFs and the double standards being applied by the SEC to such products, Gensler declined to comment, saying he couldn’t discuss matters the commission is currently evaluating. But he did shed some light on what issuers need to do to have a spot bitcoin ETF approved in the U.S., although he said they already know what the SEC’s demands are.

  “These platforms need to come in, get registered, come within the investor protection remit, ensure for the appropriate anti-manipulation and transparency, and deal with the custody issues,” Gensler said.

  On November 29, asset manager Grayscale Investments sent a letter to the SEC outlining discrepancies in the agency’s rejection of spot ETFs and acceptance of derivatives-based offerings.

  “The Commission has no basis for the position that investing in the derivatives market for an asset is acceptable for investors while investing in the asset itself is not,” the letter said.

  The SEC had denied VanEck’s spot bitcoin ETF proposal earlier that month, and a few more deadlines are coming up on its schedule. The commission has nearly ten filings lined up on its desk, awaiting approval.

  

  Spot bitcoin ETF applications on the SEC’s desk. Source: Arcane Research.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 22:00

• November Payrolls Preview: Strong Enough To Justify The Accelerated Taper?
  November Payrolls Preview: Strong Enough To Justify The Accelerated Taper?

  With Powell’s Fed having telegraphed it will accelerate the taper at this month’s meeting so it can start presumably start hiking as soon as June of 2022, the November payrolls report may be moot although traders will be looking for barbell signs: will it be strong enough to validate an accelerated taper, or could it come so far below expectations that the Fed will be forced to delay its taper-boosting plans.

  Looking at the expectations, Newsquawk reminds us that analysts look for 550k nonfarm payrolls to be added to the US economy in November, similar to October’s 531k; the jobless rate is seen falling by one-tenth of a percent to 4.5%. While as noted above the Fed appears almost certain to announce a quickening in the pace of QE tapering, analysts will be carefully watching measures of labor market slack to gauge the progress towards the Fed’s ‘three tests’ for rate hikes: i) Participation was unchanged in October, ii) employment-population ticked up by 0.1ppts, while iii) the U6 measure of underemployment fell 0.2ppts.

  With the inflation tests met, the labor market data will form a key part of the Fed’s arguments for rate hikes, and any significant  improvement in these metrics may see markets further price in tighter rates next year. Meanwhile, labor market gauges have generally been constructive in November: the rate of initial jobless claims going into the November survey period improved relative to the October window; ADP’s gauge of payrolls was in line with expectations, though the pace eased vs October; business surveys saw employment sub-indices improve and are alluding to a very tight labor market, while today’s Challenger job cuts fell to the lowest since 1993.

  Here is a summary of expectations:

  • Nonfarm payrolls are expected to print 550k in November vs 531k in October (private payrolls expected at 530k vs 604k prior,
  • manufacturing payrolls expected at 45k vs prior 60k);
  • the 3-month average nonfarm payrolls trend rate eased to 442k in October (vs 629k in September),
  • the 6-month average rose to 666k (from 622k) and the 12-month average eased to 481k (from 494k).
  • The unemployment rate is seen declining by 0.1ppts in November to 4.5%;
  • Labor market participation was unchanged at 61.6% in October (vs 63.6% in February 2020),
  • U6 underemployment declined by 0.2ppts to 8.3% (vs 7.0% in February 2020), and the employment-population ratio rose 0.1ppts to 58.8% (vs pre-pandemic 61.1%).
  • Average hourly earnings are seen rising 0.4% M/M, with the annual measure expected to rise by 0.1ppts to 4.0% Y/Y,
  • Average workweek hours are likely to be unchanged at 34.7hrs.

  POLICY FOCUS: Fed Chair Powell this week delivered hawkish testimony to lawmakers, where he stated that the economy had continued to strengthen, the labor market had continued to improve, and he sees inflation moving down significantly over the next year. He added that it was appropriate to consider wrapping up the tapering of asset purchases a few months sooner, which participants will discuss at the December FOMC. Powell telegraphing the debate in advance may have taken some of the sting out of incoming economic data — the rationale being that the Fed is set to accelerate the taper barring any significant deterioration in labor market and inflation data before the December 15th confab — but Powell still suggested that there was a three-part test for raising rates (economy at maximum employment, inflation at 2%, inflation on track to moderately exceed 2% for some time);

  Fed officials have attempted to break the link between tapering and eventual rate hikes, but forward-looking markets will be assessing incoming data within the context of the three tests, and will price expectations of the Fed rate hike trajectory accordingly. The inflation test has been met, but Powell said there was still ground to cover to reach maximum employment, though he has previously said that could be achieved by the middle of next year; this week’s labor market data, therefore, remains a key part of the eventual rate hike debate.

  SLACK: Taking an aggregate of the headline since March 2020, there are still some 4.44mln nonfarm payrolls to be recouped to get back to pre-pandemic levels. Goldman Sachs explains that it has been childcare constraints and elevated fiscal transfers which have likely weighed on participation, but these factors should have only a small effect going forward, but it may still take some time for some people to feel comfortable in returning to work, leaving some potential for longer-lasting drags. “We continue to expect that the labor force participation rate will increase in the nearterm, but we have nudged down our participation rate forecast to 1ppt below trend at end-2021 (61.9%) and 0.5ppts below trend at end-2022 (62.1%),” the bank says, “but because jobs are abundant and residual weakness in participation in mid-2022 will likely be due to changes in fiscal policy, wealth, and worker preferences, we expect that the FOMC will judge any participation shortfall that remains at that point to be structural or voluntary and will update their maximum employment goal accordingly.”

  JOBLESS CLAIMS: In the week that traditionally coincides with the BLS survey window for the jobs report, initial jobless claims were little changed at 270k from the prior week’s 269k; but since the October jobs report survey window, claims have eased from 351k. Continuing claims, meanwhile, printed 2.049mln in the survey week, down from 2.11mln in the prior week, and lower than the 2.81mln in the October survey period. Pantheon Macroeconomics said that the trend in initial jobless claims remains firmly downward, but the read may not be clear in the holiday season: “Unfortunately the numbers will be volatile over the holidays, as usual, and the next clean read on the data will be in mid-January,” and by then, “we think claims will be close to the lows seen in the pre-COVID cycle, about 210K.”

  ADP: The ADP’s national employment gauge saw 534k job additions to the US economy in November, more or less in line with the 525k forecast; the prior was revised down trivially by 1k to 570k. ADP’s economists noted that the labor market recovery continued to “power through” its challenges last month. “Job gains have eclipsed 15 million since the recovery began, though 5 million jobs short of pre-pandemic levels,” ADP said, “service providers, which are more vulnerable to the pandemic, have dominated job gains this year.” On the pandemic, ADP’s economists said it was too early to tell if the Omicron variant could potentially slow the jobs recovery in coming months.

  BUSINESS SURVEYS: Within the ISM manufacturing report, the employment index rose by 1.3 points to 53.3, remaining in expansion for a third month, with the report noting some indications that the ability to hire is improving, though this is being partially offset by the challenges of turnover and backfilling. “Survey panellists’ companies are still struggling to meet labour-management plans, but there were modest signs of progress,” ISM said, “an increasing share of comments noted improvements regarding employment,” where “an overwhelming majority of panellists indicate their companies are hiring or attempting to hire.” 51% of those surveyed were expressing difficulties in filling positions, with the situation becoming more acute in the month. Meanwhile, the services ISM is released after this month’s jobs data, but using the IHS Markit flash November PMIs as a proxy, similar themes have been seen. IHS Markit said that pressure on capacity persisted amid labour shortages, with backlogs of work rising at the second-fastest pace on record. “Firms sought to expand their workforce numbers, but employment growth was held back by challenges finding suitablecandidates.”

  JOB CUTS: Challenger’s November report said that announced job cuts had dropped to 14,875 from the 22,822 in October, the lowest monthly total since May 1993. Year-to-date, employers have announced plans to cut 302,918 jobs from their payrolls, the lowest January-November total on record, and vs 2,227,725 vs the same period in 2020. Challenger said that “with the Omicron variant emerging and the unknowns that come with its spread, coupled with the ongoing difficulty hiring and retaining workers, it’s no surprise job cuts are at record lows,” adding that “employers are spread thin, planning best- and worst-case scenarios in terms of COVID, while also contending with staff shortages and high demand.”

  Speaking of Goldman, the bank is more optimistic than consensus and estimates nonfarm payrolls rose 575k in November, above the 531k gain in October and higher than the bank’s initial forecast of +550k (which is in line with consensus). The bank expects no change in government payrolls, and thus private payrolls will also rise +575k in November (vs. consensus +525k).  According to the bank, the summer expiration of federal unemployment insurance benefits in some states boosted job-finding rates there, and the programs expired in the remaining states on September 5th. Over 4.6mn people have dropped off the unemployment benefit rolls since early September, and we assume 300-400k found new jobs during the November payroll month.

  Goldman also believes upward revisions to prior-month nonfarm payrolls are fairly likely in tomorrow’s report. The chart below reveals a trend of increasingly large upward revisions over the course of the year, with prior-month job growth revised up on net in each of the last six reports (including +235k with last month’s release). There are two potential explanations, both of which could potentially lead to upward revisions in tomorrow’s report as well.

  • First, some reopening establishments may respond to the BLS survey with a lag (e.g. 1-2 months after reopening). This would result in positive revisions to the not-seasonally-adjusted data that occurred in May, July, August, and September (dark blue bars below).
  • Second, the seasonal factors may be overfitting to the advance releases, mistakenly attributing some of the strong job creation to an evolution of seasonality (light blue lines below).

  

  ARGUING FOR A STRONGER REPORT:

  • End of federal enhanced unemployment benefits. The expiration of federal benefits in some states boosted job-finding rates over the summer, and all remaining such programs expired on September 5. The 239k pickup in job growth in October relative to September is consistent with a boost from improved labor supply, and with 4.6 mn individuals no longer receiving benefits versus in early September, this tailwind is expected to continue in tomorrow’s report and beyond.
  • Public health. The Delta wave coincided with a late-summer slowdown in job growth, with leisure and hospitality employment growth slowing sharply in September and October (see Exhibit 1). With covid infection rates falling since September, restaurant seatings on OpenTable have rebounded,and economists expect strong gains in leisure and hospitality and in other services.

  

  • Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between nthe percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—increased to a record-high of 46.9. JOLTS job openings decreased by 191kin September to 10.4mn but remained significantly higher than the pre-pandemic record.
  • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims fell during the November payroll month, averaging 257k per week vs. 320k in October. Continuing claims in regular state programs decreased 283k from survey week to survey week.
  • Education seasonality. Education payrolls weighed on the previous two reports, declining 170k cumulatively in September and October (public and private). This reflects some janitors and support staff declining to return for the fall school year. While schools will eventually fill these open positions, the start-of-year catalyst for a large rise in education jobs has passed, and we are assuming only second derivative improvement in tomorrow’s report, such as a flat reading or a modest gain (mom sa).
  • Employer surveys. The employment components of business surveys generally increased in November. Goldman’s services survey employment tracker increased 0.5pt to 55.1 and its manufacturing survey employment tracker increased 0.7pt to 59.6. The Goldman Sachs Analyst Index (GSAI) increased 4.3pt to 77.2 in November, and the employment component rose 1.6pt to a record-high of 75.6.
  • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas declined by 10% month-over-month in November after increasing by 18% in October (SA by GS),and remain near their three-decade low.

  ARGUING FOR A WEAKER REPORT:

  • Supply constraints in retail. Labor supply constraints may have weighed on pre-holiday hiring in the retail industry, for which the BLS seasonal factors anticipate net hiring of around 350k. If so, retail payroll could fall on a seasonally adjusted basis.
  • Vaccine mandates. The vaccine mandates announced by the Biden administration nin September apply to roughly 25mn unvaccinated workers, and may have weighed on November job growth in healthcare and government. While the federal deadline for compliance is generally not until early January and faces an uncertain future in the court system, early adoption in some states may have reduced job growth at the margin in tomorrow’s report.

  NEUTRAL FACTORS

  • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market were mixed. Three of the four measures available this month indicate another sizeable gain. However, the Homebase data that directionally flagged the September payroll missindicates an outright decline

  

  • ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report increased by 534k in November, in line with consensus expectations for a 525k gain and consistent with strong growth in the ADP panel.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 21:40

• Another Shutdown Averted After Senate Passes CR
  Another Shutdown Averted After Senate Passes CR

  Update (2130ET): The Senate on Thursday night passed the Continuing Resolution (CR) passed earlier in the day by the House, thus averting another government shutdown which would have taken effect Friday at midnight.

  The measure passed by a vote of 69-28, ending a brief yet tense period of negotiations until February 18 – at which time lawmakers must either kick the can down the road with yet another CR, or pass a dozen long-stalled appropriations bills to fund the government through September, the end of the 2022 fiscal year.

  🎉 Shutdown officially thwarted 🎉

  Senate passes the CR, 69-28.

  Happy stopgap to all those who celebrate.

  — Caitlin Emma (@caitlinzemma) December 3, 2021

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  *  *  *

  House Democrats have reached a spending deal to fund the government through Feb. 18 in yet another can-kick that avoids a shutdown on Friday at midnight.

  

  House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLaurio (D-CT) announced the deal early Thursday, saying that an agreement had been reached on a continuing resolution (CR) which would maintain funding at the most recent level until a larger bipartisan agreement is eventually reached.

  According to DeLaurio, the legislation “includes virtually no changes to existing funding or policy” – which will instead be included in a spending omnibus in the months ahead, according to The Hill. “However, Democrats prevailed in including $7 billion for Afghanistan evacuees. The end date is February 18. While I wish it were earlier, this agreement allows the appropriations process to move forward toward a final funding agreement which addresses the needs of the American people,” she added.

  Given the Friday night deadline, House Democrats plan to put it to a vote later Thursday, with a Senate vote soon to follow.

  🚨🚨CR DEAL REACHED: feb 18 end date. This is in line what rs have been pushing for. $$ for refugees from Afghanistan., a Dem win.

  Have to imagine a house vote today. pic.twitter.com/t6bFcXfpiJ

  — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) December 2, 2021

  As Bloomberg notes, the stopgap measure ‘puts agencies on autopilot, freezing in place program funding levels and forbidding new contracts, with few exceptions, one of which being $7 billion in funding to aid Afghan evacuees.’

  Meeting the fast-approaching end-of-week deadline will require cooperation by Senate Republicans, who have the power to drag out the process. 

  One potential impediment is a threat by a group of conservative Republicans to tie up the vote on a temporary government funding measure over their objections to federal Covid-19 vaccine and testing mandates. 

  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, gave repeated assurances throughout the day Wednesday that negotiations were making progress and a deal was near.

  “I think we’re going to be OK,” McConnell told reporters. -Bloomberg

  Some Republicans, however – including Marjorie Taylor Greene – have called on the GOP to shut down the government in order to prevent the implementation of a federal vaccine requirement. Unfortunately for MTG, she doesn’t have the votes.

  The new stopgap bill is required because Congress was unsuccessful at passing any of the 12 annual appropriations bills required to keep the lights on.

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 21:29

• It's Make-Or-Break Moment For Property Junk Bonds
  It’s Make-Or-Break Moment For Property Junk Bonds

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets live commentator and analyst

  Thursday’s news of another missed bond payment by a Chinese developer reminded investors of the struggle homebuilders face, even as the worst of the regulatory tightening is behind. Debt issued by property developers, most of them junk-rated, may soon start to diverge — with the strong credits swimming and the weaker ones sinking. In fact, an S&P Global study shows half the B-rated private developers won’t survive a stress test in the worst-case scenario.

  China’s government advisers are proposing a 2022 growth target that’s lower than the 2021 one of “above 6%,” Reuters reported, adding that the new objective could be as low as 5% to 5.5%. While comments from senior leaders call for stabilizing house prices, they fall short of rolling back curbs. All point to a tight lid that will remain on housing markets and any relaxation or easing will be in a gradual, piecemeal manner.

  Moody’s cut China’s property sales forecast on Thursday and reiterated a negative outlook for the nation’s housing sector, blaming “strict regulatory controls” that will “constrain … onshore and offshore funding access” and lead to “defaults, declining sales and rising investor aversion.” Contracted property sales are expected to fall 5%-10% in 2022 versus a prior projection range of flat to a 5% drop.

  

  Against such a policy backdrop, developers’ fortunes could soon start to diverge. Some Chinese developers are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, rushing to raise funds in the onshore bond market after private-sector homebuilders issued the least amount of yuan notes in five years. Investors including T. Rowe Price Group Inc., Allianz Global Investors and Goldman Sachs Asset Management are starting to tap opportunities selectively.

  Meanwhile, those with poor finances continue to suffer. The latest victim is Shenzhen-based Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd., which has yet to pay interest due Wednesday on a dollar bond, two note holders said. The firm had to make a $17.5m coupon payment on $300m note due 2026, Bloomberg data shows. There’s a 30-day grace period before a default can be declared.

  S&P’s research showed that half of the B-rated developers cannot meet their debt obligation within a year.

  The default rate for Chinese junk bonds is expected to fall from 13.6% this year, but will remain high at 9.7% in 2022 due to property sector troubles, JPMorgan wrote in a client note. JPMorgan favors BB-rated high-yield bonds, betting that the developers will survive and yields in mid-teens are juicy enough. For B-rated notes, the bank sees markets mostly pricing in “selected defaults” and others should eventually recover once the fear subsides.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 21:20

• While Short-Term Rates Flatline, Long-Term Ocean Freight Rates Are Soaring
  While Short-Term Rates Flatline, Long-Term Ocean Freight Rates Are Soaring

  Shippers looking to lock-in long term contracts for ocean freight are in for some serious sticker shock this month, according to shipping data consultancy Xeneta.

  While some adherents to the now discredited “transitory” inflation camp point to the recent flatlining in short-term containership rates – or even decline in the case of core transpacific trades…

  

  … long-term contract rates are still going up. According to Xeneta’s statistics compiled by the Maritime Executive website, global average long-term contracted ocean freight rates went up by 16% in November alone, for a cumulative rise of 121% year-on-year. This follows after a record-setting increase of 28% in July, when all of the major shipping corridors saw significant long-term rate hikes.

  “The continued perfect storm of high demand, maxed-out capacity, port congestion, changing consumer habits, and general supply chain disruption is fueling a rates explosion that, quite frankly, we’ve never seen the like of,” said Patrik Berglund, the CEO of Xeneta. “What’s more, it’s difficult to see a change of course ahead, with the fundamentals stacked very much in favor of the carrier community. In short, they’ve never had it so good, while many shippers, unfortunately, are well and truly on the ropes.”

  The long-term rate hikes are most pronounced for routes to and from the United States. Xeneta calculated the increase for long-term import rates for the U.S. market at 39% for November, up 122 percent year-on-year. U.S. export rates also rose 9% for the month.

  The soaring rates are driving tremendous profitability at the top container lines, many of which have doubled (or even tripled) their revenue year-on-year. Analysts with Blue Alpha Capital estimate that container lines took in a cumulative $48 billion in profit in the third quarter alone, and more than $100 billion over the first nine months of the year. This is more than the combined earnings of the last five years for the entire industry. According to third-ranked carrier CMA CGM, the fourth quarter may be even more profitable, and the first half of 2022 is looking strong as well.

  “2021 will be a year to remember for carriers and one to forget, if that’s possible, for the shipper community,” said Berglund. “What lies ahead is unclear, but we can see there’s action planned to try and ease congestion at major US ports . . . while newbuilds, potential new players and the growing trend of shippers chartering their own vessels might [have an effect].”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 21:00

• Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services Suspends Vaccine Mandate Enforcement
  Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services Suspends Vaccine Mandate Enforcement

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) suspended enforcement of its vaccine mandate for healthcare workers after two court orders earlier this week.

  A memo issued by the agency, posted by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Twitter Thursday, said that CMS “remains confident” it will prevail in court but is “suspending activities related to the implementation and enforcement of this rule pending future development in the litigation.”

  

  “While these preliminary injunctions are in effect,” it continues to say, “CMS surveyors must not survey providers for compliance with the requirements” with the rule.

  The memo is referring to federal government officials conducting checks of whether Medicare- or Medicaid-funded facilities are complying with the Biden administration’s mandate that healthcare staff gets fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by Jan. 4.

  The CMS rule allows for religious and medical exemptions to the vaccine.

  Schmitt, a Republican who is running for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat, hailed CMS’s memo as a victory in a Twitter post.

  This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued preliminary injunctions against the CMS vaccine rule, which was unveiled on Nov. 4 alongside federal rules that mandate either testing or vaccines for employers with 100 or more workers.

  “Between the two of them, these injunctions cover all states” as well as Washington, D.C. and U.S. territories, the memo said.

  CMS has appealed the two federal court decisions.

  The rule for private businesses, which is being enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was dealt a blow last month when a U.S. Fifth Court of Appeals issued an injunction that blocked its enforcement.

  The same court affirmed its previous decision several days later, which is currently being challenged by the Biden administration.

  On Nov. 29, the Biden administration’s Office of Management and Budget federal told agencies in a memo that they can wait to terminate or suspend their employees who won’t get vaccinated until the holidays are over.

  OMB Deputy Director for Management Jason Miller and Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja wrote that “no subsequent enforcement actions, beyond that education and counseling” is mandated for federal workers “who have not yet complied with the vaccination requirement until the new calendar year begins in January.”

  Later, White House Jen Psaki downplayed the memo and said that “nothing has changed” regarding enforcement, claiming it is “inaccurate” to say that the White House has “delayed anything, or changed” enforcement of the rule. In September, Biden announced he would require all federal employees to receive the shot.

  The Epoch Times has contacted CMS for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 20:40

• Russia Deploys Anti-Ship Missiles Near Japan On Disputed Kuril Islands
  Russia Deploys Anti-Ship Missiles Near Japan On Disputed Kuril Islands

  Russia has just seriously escalated the ongoing historic dispute with Japan over the Kuril islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories. The status of ownership of the islands, which Russia de facto currently controls and has small bases on, is still unresolved since the end of WWII as a treaty regarding their status is still being negotiated.

  On Thursday the Russian Defense Ministry announced the military stationed has stationed its Bastion coastal missile defense system on a remote part of the island chain near Japan, identified as the island of Matua. These are considered “shore-based anti-ship missile systems” – seen as also potentially threatening to Japan’s Western allies, given for example US warships have recently traversed nearby waters.

  

  This marks the third Bastian defense system deployed to the islands, amid a major push to beef up Russia’s military infrastructure there.

  The Bastion has a reported range of up to 450 kilometers, and while deemed “defensive” in nature, there’s little doubt Tokyo will take it as an unnecessary and threatening posture regarding the islands’ ownership. 

  Russia has defended the missile deployments so near Japan, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying in fresh statements, “Russia is free to place on its territory those objects that it considers (necessary), and in those areas of our country in which it considers appropriate. This is our sovereign right, this is the right of any state, it is unlikely that it can be challenged by anyone.” Peskov added: “And we retain the political will to continue a comprehensive dialogue with our Japanese partners in order to find ways to resolve this fundamental problem.”

  Russia (at that time as the Soviet Union) has exercise de facto control over the Kurils since it seized them in the final days of World War II. The United States recognizes Japan’s sovereignty over the islands, however.

  

   Russia’s near-future plans for continuing to build-up defense on the islands were described in The Moscow Times as follows: 

  The Pacific Fleet has erected a special “autonomous military town” on the uninhabited volcanic island to provide operational maintenance for the Bastion, which has a range of up to 450 kilometers. 

  According to Interfax, the Russian military has previously announced plans to build an airfield for light military transport aircraft and a base point for Russian Navy ships on Matua. 

  Japan’s Foreign Ministry has in the recent past frequently protested Russia’s military build-up just to its north stressing in prior statements: “We are constantly gathering information about the Russian military’s actions in the Northern Territories.” This has served to stall any final negotiated settlement, with no final resolution in sight.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 20:20

• Watch: Joe Rogan Eviscerates Media For Reporting Waukesha Massacre As An "Accident"
  Watch: Joe Rogan Eviscerates Media For Reporting Waukesha Massacre As An “Accident”

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Joe Rogan once again tore the legacy media apart on his podcast, this time over its coverage of the Waukesha attack after several outlets referred to the murderous rampage as an accident.

  

  “The guy in Wisconsin had tried to run over his f****** girlfriend and he was out on only $1000 bail. He tried to kill someone with his car, he was out on $1000 bail, and then he runs over 50 people in a car,” Rogan explained.

  “Here’s the f***** up part: the way they’re covering that story in the news. It’s not the ‘man who killed those people,’ it was an accident that was caused by an SUV,” Rogan said, referring to NBC, CNN, CBS and others calling the attack a ‘crash’ and an ‘accident’.

  Rogan continued, “A f****** SUV caused an accident? what are you saying? Did the car go haywire? Did the auto-driving feature go nuts? No this evil man with real problems… a psychologically f***** up human being drove into a crowd of strangers.”

  

  Watch:

  The Washington Post reported that the attack was ’caused by a SUV’:

  According to the Washington Post, the Christmas parade attack was actually “caused by a SUV.”https://t.co/VQxIfv1bhw

  — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 25, 2021

  The New York Times reported the “SUV” incident on page 22:

  One wonders if a white supremacist (whether deliberately or not) had ploughed into a BLM parade that the New York Times would put the report on page 22. pic.twitter.com/R9k2Sb3I68

  — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 22, 2021

  The media also lied and suggested that suspect Darrell Brooks was fleeing another crime scene and just happened on the Christmas parade.

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 20:00

• FAA & Army Probe Dangerously Low NFL Game Flyover: "Could've Been A Disaster"
  FAA & Army Probe Dangerously Low NFL Game Flyover: “Could’ve Been A Disaster”

  The US Army has opened a rare investigation of a military flyover of an NFL game. Several helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division’s Combat Aviation Brigade, based at Fort Campbell, Tennessee, conducted what’s being described as a dangerously low flyover of Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on Nov.14 for the Tennessee Titans game that night. Over 69,000 people were in attendance.

  The low pass included a pair of AH-64 Apache helicopters, a UH-60 Blackhawk, and a CH-47F Chinook which were conducting a “Salute to Service” tribute for active duty service members and veterans. While this sort of thing has become routine for NFL games in recent years, it immediately sparked an inquiry from the FAA given the federal agency’s requirement that military flyovers must happen at least 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle.

  Epic flyover at Tennessee Titans game above Nissan Stadium. AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Blackhawk, CH-47F Chinook. 😎 pic.twitter.com/14LNVCNaYG

  — Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) November 23, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  In the Nov.14 example the military helicopters seemed literally eye-level with fans in the upper decks. Further, one local CBS affiliate cited a fan to say the aircraft actually “came close to knocking down an American Flag and a camera.”

  Based on the initial FAA probe, the 101st Airborne Division “has directed [a] preliminary inquiry into this event,” according to Army spokesman Lt. Col. Terence Kelley.

  The incident has sparked controversy, with a number of current military pilots coming forward to defend the low-pass of the packed stadium as perfectly safe and nothing to worry about. However one former FAA official slammed the maneuver as irresponsible – which could have led to “disaster”…

  But Larry Williams, a retired aviation safety inspector with the FAA, told NewsChannel 5 that the incident could “have been a disaster.”

  “General reaction, yeah, it was unsafe,” Williams told the news outlet. “It was very dangerous.”

  From inside the @101stAASLTDIV military flyover #SaluteToService 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/aErsRxfR17

  — Tennessee Titans (@Titans) November 16, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  And some fans had also expressed concern, with one posting to social media – and cited in local reports as saying, “Altitude was concerning as I stood and watched from the top row of the stadium. I was above these guys. I had a mini heart attack.”

  Some observers said the helicopters dipped in to the stadium, and not just flew over it…

  A 101st Airborne Division flyover of Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee, last month is being probed by the FAA. But military helicopter drivers have shrugged, saying they train extensively to operate at low altitudes, Task & Purpose reports. https://t.co/hbEEwSzDW5

  — The War Horse (@thewarhorsenews) December 1, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Channel 5 News suggested the choppers may have flown under a hard to spot cable, though this is in dispute.

  When NewsChannel 5 Investigates slowed down the video, the helicopters pass right beneath what appears to be a cable of some sort stretched across the stadium.

  “They went under that cable,” Williams said. “It appeared just a few feet from there. So if they had just gotten off from altitude a few feet, it would have been a disaster.”

  From another angle, the cable is clearly visible.

  But from the cockpit camera, it’s not as easy to see.

  “I wonder whether they saw the cable before they got there,” Williams said.

  NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked, “What is the potential with that cable across the stadium?”

  “Well,” Williams answered, “if you hit the cable, especially with a helicopter, more than likely it would crash.”

  Video from near ground level showing what appears to be the cable in question:

  And more: 

  According to Nashville’s News Channel 5, videos of the event are “raising concerns (that) some…appeared to show the choppers passing just beneath some sort of cable. The Titans said it was actually cables used to hold the field goal nets.”

  However, the Nashville station also says that their own videos show “those cables are connected to the bottom of the top deck, which means the Army helicopters would have flown above them.”

  An update to that report, however, quoted a Titan spokesperson who said the position of the cable in question was an “optical illusion”, and that it represented no danger to the inbound helicopters or people seated below.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 19:40

• Iran Says Israel Is Spreading Lies To "Poison" Nuclear Deal Talks
  Iran Says Israel Is Spreading Lies To “Poison” Nuclear Deal Talks

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  As negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal concluded their third day in Vienna, on Wednesday Iran said Israel is stoking tensions and spreading lies to “poison” the talks.

  “Israeli regime whose existence relies on tension is at it again, trumpeting lies to poison Vienna talks,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh wrote on Twitter. “All parties in the room now face a test of their independence & political will to carry out the job — irrespective of the fake news designed to destroy prospects for success.”

  

  For decades now, Israel has been falsely claiming Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but the warnings never come true. On Monday, when the negotiations first resumed, Israeli media reported that Israel warned the US Iran is preparing to enrich uranium at the 90 percent level needed for weapons-grade, and the reports offered no evidence to back up the claim.

  Since the JCPOA talks have resumed, Israeli officials have made their opposition to the process known and claim Iran is only trying to buy time to make a bomb. On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called for more sanctions on Iran and a “credible military threat” to deter Tehran.

  But sanctions from the US and covert attacks from Israel have only led to Iran making the nuclear advancements that Israel is complaining about.

  The JCPOA limits Iran’s uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent and makes its nuclear program subject to the most stringent inspections in the world. If Israel really cared about Iran’s nuclear advancements, it would favor a JCPOA revival instead of doing everything to sabotage the agreement.

  #Iran accused #Israel of “trumpeting lies to poison” the Vienna talks on reviving Tehran’s 2015 nuclear agreement

  “Israeli regime whose existence relies on tension is at it again, trumpeting lies to poison Vienna talks”Iran FM spokesman posted on Twitter https://t.co/EDW86yRbPA

  — Randa HABIB (@RandaHabib) December 1, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Even without the JCPOA, Iran still vows not to develop a nuclear bomb and is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Israel refuses to sign due to its secret nuclear weapons program.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 19:20

• Democrats Blocking Senate Bill That Bans Imports Made With Uyghur Slave Labor
  Democrats Blocking Senate Bill That Bans Imports Made With Uyghur Slave Labor

  GOP China hawks are lashing out at Senate Democrats for their latest “concessions to the Chinese Communist Party” – which also threatens to halt Congressional approval for the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act.

  Sen. Marco Rubio wants to see a “controversial” amendment added, which his office is saying Dems are blocking based on false pretenses based on procedural issues, that would ban any imports from China that are suspected of being produced with Uyghur slave labor. However supporters say it shouldn’t be a source of controversy at all given several human rights groups support it, and it should be consistent with the Biden administration’s general human rights stance on China. “Today we have American corporations using slaves in China,” Sen. Rubio told Fox News on Thursday, highlighting the fundamental issue.

  

  The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act targets “Goods manufactured or produced in Xinjiang” which “shall not be entitled to entry into the United States unless Customs and Border Protection (1) determines that the goods were not manufactured by convict labor, forced labor, or indentured labor under penal sanctions; and (2) reports such a determination to Congress and to the public,” according to the bill summary.

  The action springs from widespread reports over the past couple years that the Chinese state has placed some one million ethnic Uyghur Muslims in a network of Communist ‘reeducation’ and forced labor camps. Beijing officials have admitted to the existence of such facilities, but while US leaders have condemned the “slave camps” – China’s government has presented them as merely tantamount to job training and assistance programs, or a halfway house of sorts. 

  According to details of a last minute blockage of the human rights amendment, the Free Beacon writes, “But Democrats excluded the amendment from a vote late Wednesday night, after members of the party privately objected to it, sources told the Free Beacon. Earlier in the evening, Democrats tried to use a procedural mechanism that would have allowed a vote on the act but stripped it from the final appropriations bill, according to a hotline memo from Senate leadership.

  Ironically, the move appears connected to the Biden admin trying to preserve it’s futile “climate agenda”, which in the end will sacrifice the United States’ human rights stance in China: 

  The pushback from Senate Democrats comes amid efforts by senior Biden administration officials to quietly kill the bill over concerns it will hinder the White House’s climate agenda and limit solar panel imports from China. Presidential climate envoy John Kerry, among others, has been lobbying House members against the bill, the Free Beacon reported last month.

  Senator Rubio on @FoxNews: Today we have American corporations using slaves in China pic.twitter.com/ce5L75FdoS

  — Senator Rubio Press (@SenRubioPress) December 2, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  However, each side is now blaming the other amid conflicting accounts of precisely why it’s being blocked, with Democrat leaders downplaying their actions as merely based on technicalities, blaming improper Republican procedural methods and rule-breaking.

  Importantly, as the report underscores of the Uyghur dominant Xinjiang province, “The region is also the world’s largest producer of solar panel components, an industry that human rights groups say is rife with Uyghur slave labor.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 19:00

• Futures Slide After Five "Mild" Cases Of Omicron Variant Detected In New York
  Futures Slide After Five “Mild” Cases Of Omicron Variant Detected In New York

  It’s an outcome that could be seen from a mile away – and we made sure everyone following us would see it this morning, when we said to “expect a cluster of NYC cases in the next 24 hours” after it was reported that the 2nd identified US case in Minneapolis had attended the Anime NYC 2021 convention at the Javits Center from Nov. 19-21…

  Expect a cluster of NYC cases in the next 24 hours.

  “The person spoke with MDH case investigators and reported traveling to New York City and attended the Anime NYC 2021 convention at the Javits Center from Nov. 19-21”

  We will know just how benign Omicron is within 72 hours

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 2, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  … but apparently the news that more cases are emerging in NYC has come as a total shock to the algos programmed by 19 year old math PhD’s.

  Moments ago, during a press conference by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, the two announced that at least five cases of the COVID-19 omicron variant were reported in New York, just hours after the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced a case in a resident with a recent travel history to New York City.

  #BREAKING: In a joint press conference with @NYCMayor Bill de Blasio, @GovKathyHochul announced that a total of 5 known cases of the #OmicronVarient of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the state of New York. pic.twitter.com/L5gtpFB3nN

  — Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) December 2, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The five confirmed cases in the state of New York include:

  1. 67-year-old woman in Suffolk County – some vaccination history present, unknown how many doses she received
  2. Queens based case – unknown gender – unknown if vaccinated
  3. Queens based case – unknown gender – unknown if vaccinated
  4. Brooklyn based case – unknown gender – unknown if vaccinated
  5. Just received word of a 5th suspected case – no further info

  What is far more important – because by now everyone knows that the omicron variant is highly transmissible – is that all of the cases are said to be “mild” and everyone recovered at home. In other words, while we collect more and more data point, every incremental observation validates the optimistic take that omicron may spread faster but is indeed, as the South African doctor who first identified it, “extremely mild.”

  Gov Hochul confirmed as much, saying that “while [Omicron] may be highly transmissible we want people to know that the early cases that arise are not life threatening, they seem to be minor cases”

  Of course, all the nuances was wasted on the headline scanning algos, and futures which had levitated after the close to trade near session highs in today’s torrid short covering session, dropped on the news, and were down about 15 points…

  

  … or about 3 spoos for every new case. We can’t wait for the algos to learn that there are over 8 million New Yorkers (actually probably less than that now that so many are fleeing de Blasio’ socialist paradise).

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 18:48

• Today's Inflation Trivia: Carbon Offsets
  Today’s Inflation Trivia: Carbon Offsets

  Submitted by Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  What “commodity” is up 350% since May and up 22% since November 1? The Global Emissions Offset Futures:

  

  So the one inflation literally no one is talking about, is the cost of buying carbon offsets?

  What we need to understand is how many of the offsets are new (someone created an offset) which would be good, or how much is people who already had offsets just selling them?

  Clearly winners and losers in this market, but fascinating.

  This topic came up because I’m told, at least in Europe, despite high gasoline prices, refiners are seeing less profitability, in part, because the rise in carbon offsets has outpaced all else.

  Probably not a bad thing, if it is getting us to the goal of carbon neutral (which somehow I think depends on whether this is new offsets created, or shifting of existing offsets, that previously weren’t monetized), but I suspect it is inflationary, especially since of all the inflation complaints I hear and read about, this one isn’t mentioned.

  Anyways, I found this one really curious and have to admit it had been off my radar screen until recently.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 18:40

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• Large UK Supermarket Chains Refuse To Police "Divisive" Face-Mask Mandates
  Large UK Supermarket Chains Refuse To Police “Divisive” Face-Mask Mandates

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Two large supermarket chains in the UK have refused to make their staff police mandatory face mask rules, with one boss asserting that the issue is too “divisive.”

  

  New face mask rules were imposed in England from today, meaning people who use public transport, enter shops and innumerable other venues have to wear a compulsory face covering.

  England dropped mandatory face mask rules back in July, but they remained in place in neighboring countries like Scotland, where official data shows infection rates remained the same or higher.

  According to Oxford Professor Jim Naismith, re-imposing face mask rules is “unlikely to have much of an impact” on the spread of the Omicron variant.

  Wary of how contentious the issue has become, Iceland and Co-op, two large supermarket chains in the UK, have publicly said they will tell staff not to enforce such rules.

  Richard Walker, managing director of Iceland, said the company would instead be concentrating its efforts on the “long-term recovering of the high street.”

  “We fully support the reintroduction of compulsory face masks in shops, however, we won’t be asking our store colleagues to police it,” said Walker.

  Co-op’s Paul Gerrard went further, telling GMB, “”What we won’t do is we won’t refuse to serve people who aren’t wearing a mask and we won’t refuse entry to the shop to people who aren’t wearing a mask.”

  “I won’t be asking my store colleagues to police those who refuse to adhere to the rules because I know that, bizarrely, this is a divisive issue, and I think my store colleagues have got enough to deal with in the run-up to Christmas,” he added.

  The British Retail Consortium said that it was the responsibility of the police to enforce the rules, adding: “Customers are asked to respect the rules and be considerate to their fellow shoppers and to hard-working shop staff.”

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 12/02/2021 – 02:00

• The Usual Suspects Are Trying To Foment A Crisis With Russia
  The Usual Suspects Are Trying To Foment A Crisis With Russia

  Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via Antiwar.com,

  Once again, the United States and some of its security clients in Eastern Europe are doing their utmost to create a crisis atmosphere with respect to Russia. A key player in that effort is the government of Ukraine. As Ukrainian officials did in April 2021, they are again highlighting allegedly suspicious Russian troop movements near the border between the two countries in late October and early November. Ukrainian leaders contend that such maneuvers might well be the prelude to a military offensive.

  

  Kiev’s propaganda offensive escalated dramatically on November 20 when Brig. General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s director of defense intelligence, asserted in interview with Military Times that Moscow already had plans in place to launch an invasion by the end of January 2022. He was not talking about a modest border incursion in support of pro-Russia separatists who control portions of Ukraine’s Donbas region either. The attack he was predicting, Budanov insisted, would likely involve airstrikes, artillery and armor attacks followed by airborne assaults in the east, amphibious assaults in Odessa and Mariupul and even an incursion of Ukraine through neighboring Belarus in the north.

  Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky soon made Budanov’s prediction look mild by comparison. He warned that Moscow not only intended to seize large swaths of Ukraine’s territory, but that the Kremlin had plans in place to stage a coup to overthrow his government. Zelensky was quite specific about the timetable; the coup was to occur during the week of November 28-December 4.

  It would be bad enough if such efforts to generate a crisis were simply a unilateral campaign by a government determined to whip-up nationalist emotions to revive its flagging fortunes. But as it did in April, Joe Biden’s administration seems ready to give full credence and backing to the stance of its Ukrainian client toward Russia. In an April 2 telephone call to Zelensky, Biden “affirmed the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbas and Crimea.”

  Washington’s knee-jerk support for Kiev is equally evident with respect to the latest developments. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried told reporters in a telephone briefing on November 26 that “all options are on the table” in how to respond to Russia’s “large and unusual” troop buildup near Ukraine’s border. Her statement is the typical diplomatic blather for emphasizing that Washington would even consider using military force on behalf of Ukraine – although the United States has no formal security obligations whatever toward that country. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg likewise insisted that the Alliance “stands with Ukraine” in its confrontation with Russia.

  Such blank check assurances are likely to encourage the most irresponsible, revanchist sentiments in Ukraine and increase the likelihood of a catastrophic showdown. Typically, though, establishment news media outlets in the United States busily try to spin the crisis as the latest evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin, “surrounded by hardliners,” is the one seeking a confrontation with the United States and NATO. Kiev and Washington, implicitly, are entirely innocent parties.

  The record indicates otherwise. The Biden administration and its NATO allies seem to be going out of their way to engage in highly provocative actions in Russia’s immediate neighborhood. And those moves are not confined to the mounting diplomatic and military support for Kiev, including weapons sales, and now perhaps even the dispatch of U.S. military “advisers” (i.e. disguised Special Forces personnel), although that aspect is the centerpiece.

  The Pentagon is waging a multifaceted campaign of provocations, especially in and around the Black Sea. The US air and naval presence there has surged markedly in the past year or so, including a new deployment in November over Moscow’s strenuous and increasingly pointed protests. Washington and its NATO allies also have conducted several “exercises” (i.e., war games) in that body of water. The ever-helpful Ukrainian government now calls for a “constant” NATO military presence in the Black Sea.

  Such measures may not be the worst of the provocations that the United States and its partners have committed. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accused US bombers of rehearsing a nuclear strike on Russia from two different directions earlier in November and complained that the planes had come within 20 km (12.4 miles) of the Russian border. Highlighting the notorious tone-deaf behavior of US officials, the Pentagon brushed off the complaint with the bland statement that “These missions were announced publicly at the time, and closely planned with (Strategic Command), (European Command), allies and partners to ensure maximum training and integration opportunities.” More objective observers might respond that conducting such maneuvers that close to the borders of another nuclear-armed great power, especially during an already tense environment, was reckless.

  However, there is no indication that Western foreign policy elites have the slightest intention to dilute the hyper-aggressive policy toward Russia, despite the Kremlin’s warnings that the United States and its allies are taking Moscow’s security red lines far too lightly. Hawkish types act as though previous US and NATO actions have been entirely defensive and conciliatory, despite massive evidence to the contrary. They cling to the benign motives mantra, even as they advocate escalating the confrontation through such steps as coercing Moscow’s client Belarus.

  Former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s latest article is a textbook example of such thinking. Bolton charges that Russia not only intends to dominate Ukraine and Belarus, it plans to re-establish unchallenged control over the entire “near abroad.” In other words, Putin’s goal is to reconstitute the Soviet empire in all but name. US and NATO actions are, of course, a purely defensive response to such plans for egregious aggression and territorial aggrandizement.

  “The Kremlin’s wider perspective,” Bolton charges, “is exemplified by its increases in Black Sea naval drills, and rising complaints about the US Navy’s “provocative” presence there. Black Sea dominance would threaten not only Ukraine but also Georgia, intimidate NATO members Bulgaria and Romania, and induce angst in Erdogan’s increasingly erratic Turkey.”

  According to Bolton, Moscow’s determination to regard the Black Sea as an essential part of Russia’s security zone is definitive evidence of aggressive intent, but Washington’s repeated willingness to send its air and naval forces 6,000 miles from home to conduct war games in that same body of water is not in any way provocative or aggressive.

  Bolton’s willful blindness is typical of how most of the US foreign policy community views relations with Russia. Such arrogance is producing a crisis with Moscow on multiple fronts, and the Putin government seems less and less willing to continue backing down. A potentially catastrophic military confrontation is still avoidable, but new thinking on the part of US and Western policymakers is imperative. Unfortunately, there are very few signs that such new thinking is on the horizon.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 23:50

• Biden's Asia Czar Says China To Likely End Trade War "On Australia's Terms"
  Biden’s Asia Czar Says China To Likely End Trade War “On Australia’s Terms”

  More than 18 months after China kicked off its campaign of economic coercion against Canberra targeting a range of key commodities including barley, wine, coal timber and lobsters – Australia has yet to be brought “to its knees” as officials in Beijing had been hoping for. 

  Though without doubt devastating for many Australian farmers and others in industries directly impacted by the $17bn China trade row, the data ultimately shows it’s been Canberra’s allies like the US picking up much of the slack.

  President Joe Biden’s top Asia adviser Kurt Campbell is now predicting eventual defeat for China, telling the Sydney-based Lowly Institute that he expects Beijing to waive the white flag and restore the trade relationship with Australia, and on Canberra’s terms.

  

  The past months have seen Australia-China relations reach their lowest point in history, given the already soaring tensions went to boiling point after Canberra on Sept.15 unveiled the ‘AUKUS’ nuclear submarine technology sharing deal with the US and Britain. Thus economic warfare unleashed alarming words among state officials threatening future literal war.

  Campbell, who is point man on everything Indo-Pacific for the National Security Council, told the think tank in his statements, “I fully believe that over time, that China will re-engage with Australia. But it will, I believe, re-engage on Australian terms.”

  “I think China’s preference would have been to break Australia,” he underscored. “To drive Australia to its knees… I don’t believe that’s going to be the way it’s going to play out.”

  “I believe that China will engage because it is in its own interest to have a good relationship with Australia,” he concluded. He suggested that likely China, as Australia’s largest trade and export partner – had never expected Canberra to weather the storm this long…

  Mr Campbell said that China respected “strength” and that Australia’s resolve in the face of the economic sanctions would strengthen its hand when dealing with the Chinese government.

  Months ago outside observers began expressing surprise over Australia’s economy standing up better than expected in the face of China’s coercion. 

  

  Australian treasurer Josh Frydenberg has lately emphasized a theme that despite Beijing “willing to use its economic weight as a source of political pressure” it remains that his country’s economy has shown “great resilience to date”.

  We noted starting in October that there are signs China is beginning to fold – for example reluctantly unloading Australian coal amid its recent power crunch despite its unofficial import ban.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 23:30

• Miller: Fauci The Omnipotent
  Miller: Fauci The Omnipotent

  Authored by Stephen L. Miller via The Spectator World (emphasis ours),

  What does Anthony Fauci have to do with a starship? The good doctor’s staggering claims and admissions during his Sunday interview with Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan recall a classic scene from Star Trek V: The Undiscovered Country. The crew of the Enterprise are taken to a mysterious realm to face a being claiming to be an all-powerful god. To question the being would be to question God himself. The being, of course, turns out not to be a god or the God, but rather an alien entity, trapped and trying to escape.

  

  Now, Dr. Fauci seems to be borrowing from the alien’s playbook.

  When Fauci was asked recently about Senator Ted Cruz recommending prosecutorial action against him to the attorney general, he grew incensed and defensive, even throwing in a reference to the Capitol riot on January 6 for some reason. It was a nakedly partisan attack, the kind you might expect from our politicians and bureaucrats, but not the nation’s bedside doctor, who should be led by the Hippocratic Oath and not Jim Acosta.

  Then came a broad swipe at anyone who dared to question the omnipotent Anthony Fauci, despite his many, many backtracks over the last two years. Fauci decreed that to question him, his decisions or his motives, is to question the very foundations of science itself.

  When Brennan referenced Fauci’s testimony to Congress, he responded, “I’m just going to do my job. I’m going to be saving lives and they are going to be lying.” He continued, “If they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci. It’s easy to criticize. But they are really criticizing science. Because I represent science and that’s dangerous.”

  Tony Fauci has apparently anointed himself the Science, or at least the ambassador speaking on behalf of Science. This is the second time he has made such a declaration. “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science,” he told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press in June.

  This is where most criticism of Fauci misses the mark. Breathless tweets from anonymous accounts depict him as a war criminal, worse than Hitler. Senators threaten him with jail time over misleading testimony to Congress. But when Fauci declares himself a representative of Science, it’s a statement of his religious devotion. He’s not referring to the science of, say, the human manipulation of viruses that can lead to a global pandemic, research Fauci once said he believed was worth the risk. Or to the science that has possibly led to eleven million deaths worldwide and altered the lives of every citizen of every industrialized nation on the planet.

  Fauci believes himself to be a force for good, no matter how many people or puppies have to die to achieve that good. He does not believe in the laws of Congress or man, which is why when pressed, even by Brennan in that same interview, about the origins of this virus and why it seems engineered differently than other SARS viruses, he retreats once again and pushes a wet market theory that not even the Chinese government is willing to stand by anymore.

  Fauci does not consider himself to be accountable to us, or to Congress. He is accountable only to Science. He’s not going to be prosecuted. He’s not going to prison, no matter how many Twitter users crow about it. He will, however, be judged by science, real science, when this is all over. And the real science shows that eleven million people and counting have died so far.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 23:10

• New Zealand Deploys Military To Restore Peace In Crisis-Stricken Solomon Islands
  New Zealand Deploys Military To Restore Peace In Crisis-Stricken Solomon Islands

  New Zealand’s government announced Wednesday it would deploy military personnel to the crisis-stricken Solomon Islands after a mob burnt down buildings and looted shops, according to Reuters. 

  New Zealand joins similar deployments by Australia, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea to restore peace following anti-government rioting. Protesters demand Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare step down over foreign diplomatic ties with China. 

  

  New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden said 15 military and police personnel would be deployed on Thursday, followed by a much larger group of 50 over the weekend. She said security forces would work with Solomons police as part of the Australia-led mission to restore peace. 

  “We are deeply concerned by the recent civil unrest and rioting in Honiara, and following yesterday’s request of the Solomon Islands Government, we have moved quickly to provide urgent assistance to help restore sustained peace and security,” Ardern said in the statement.

  Last week, more than 1,000 rioters gathered in Honiara, the capital, and unleashed havoc on government buildings and targeted Chinese-owned shops. Protesters were angered about Sogavare’s move to switch diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China two years ago. He said the demonstrations were “influenced and encouraged by other powers” (we wonder who that could be…). 

  Australia said it will deploy more than 100 police and military personnel to the Solomon Islands as protesters in the Pacific nation defied a government-imposed lockdown and set fire to buildings in the capital Honiara for a second day https://t.co/RuYqDZcVWI pic.twitter.com/DEH0eEjlHZ

  — Reuters (@Reuters) November 25, 2021

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  The Solomon Islands appears to become a geopolitical battleground between China and the US.

  “Geopolitical maneuvering was a trigger but it isn’t the whole picture,” Anna Powles, a senior lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand, told Financial Times. 

  “The dynamics underpinning the riots are a complex web of longstanding local grievances over the lack of economic development, corruption, and the capturing of elites. These dynamics have intersected over the past three years with the geopolitical competition,” Powles said. 

  Locals are also angered by the increase of businesses owned by ethnic Chinese that has driven economic inequality.

  “There was some feeling against the Chinese businesses that are involved in the financing of domestic politics, but this is not new,” said Leliana Firisua, a Honiara resident influential in the Malaitan community. “This resentment will continue if they do not stop doing it.”

  Firisua warned: “This unrest will not stop unless what the people are demanding is achieved. And that is change.”

  So the temporary Australia-led peacekeeping mission might turn into a much more extended stay as local anger against the Chinese may not abate anytime soon. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 22:50

• LA To Enforce Homeless Encampment Bans In Parks, Near Elementary School In District 12
  LA To Enforce Homeless Encampment Bans In Parks, Near Elementary School In District 12

  Authored by Micaela Ricaforte via The Epoch Times,

  The Los Angeles City Council passed a motion Nov. 30 to enforce the ban on homeless encampments in seven locations of District 12 amid the city’s growing homeless population.

  

  An ordinance passed earlier this year banned homeless encampments in the public right-of-way; however, a city council vote is required before the ban can be enforced.

  Introduced by Councilman John Lee of District 12 and seconded by District 15’s Councilman Joe Buscaino, the motion was passed 10–2, with dissent from Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Mike Bonin.

  The motion prohibits “sitting, lying, sleeping, or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property” within 500 feet of the parks on Chatsworth Street, Rinaldi Street, Vanowen Street, Reseda Boulevard, and Nordhoff Street—as well as Chatsworth Branch Library and Dearborn Elementary Charter Academy in District 12.

  Buscaino’s own motions to enforce the ban in his district’s 161 locations—more than 100 of which are schools and daycare centers, and dozens are parks and libraries—will be voted on Dec. 1.

  Some Angelenos expressed their opposition to the ban, criticizing Buscaino and Lee’s handling of homelessness.

  “This is a really, really cruel way of enforcing encampment [bans],” Olga Lexell, a resident in the South Robertson neighborhood, commented during the council meeting.

  Lexell went on to criticize the council’s lack of outreach in the communities that would be impacted by the ban.

  “It’s been shocking, as somebody with experience working with the unhoused population, to see people on the city council with zero experience in social services or in working with these groups, who don’t even come out to the park, who don’t even know what outreach looks like, advocating for these punitive measures that do nothing but displace people and disconnect people from their case workers,” Lexell said.

  Lou Caravella, president of Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council, told The Epoch Times in an email that anything besides affordable housing construction was “just for show.”

  “The only solution to homelessness is building affordable housing,” Caravella said.

  “Sweeps of homeless encampments are temporary and almost entirely cosmetic. We must build low-income housing and end the cycle of pay-for-play that rewards LA City Council for gifting permits to donor-developers for overpriced housing.”

  Some residents in support of the enforcement said the bans are about protecting public spaces and single-family homes.

  Speaking only as an individual resident in Northridge, Glenn Bailey, who is also the president of the city’s East Neighborhood Council, said three of the locations listed on Lee’s motion fell into his neighborhood council district’s boundaries.

  “These three locations are surrounded on three or more sides by single-family residences or townhomes and condos,” Bailey told The Epoch Times.

  “The prohibition of encampments in the public right-of-way adjoining these public facilities is especially appropriate.”

  This comes amid a growing homeless population in the city.

  Though the 2021 data is not yet available, Los Angeles city has more than 41,000 homeless people in 2020—a 16.1 percent increase from 2019—according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

  Earlier this month, Buscaino, who is also running for mayor, introduced a citywide motion that would ban homeless people from camping in public spaces if enough shelter is available and has been offered. If passed, the measure would be placed on the upcoming 2022 ballot.

  However, the council voted 11–2 on Nov. 23 to send the measure to the council’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee, where the fate of the measure will be decided in the next several months.

  Michael Trujillo, a spokesperson for Buscaino’s campaign, said Nov. 23 they plan to collect signatures for the measure starting in January.

  Buscaino criticized the council’s move to send the measure to the committee.

  “Here’s what I’m hearing,” Buscaino said Nov. 23. “Process, process, vetting, let’s send this to committee. Let’s get a report back in 90 days. Let’s create a task force while people are dying in our streets.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 22:30

• 88% Of Black Marylanders Support Governor's Plan To 'Re-Fund The Police'  
  88% Of Black Marylanders Support Governor’s Plan To ‘Re-Fund The Police’  

  Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan recently announced a $150 million proposal to “re-fund the police” despite state Democrats denouncing the move as “divisive” and “misguided.” But who cares what Democrats think, and let’s focus on the people of Baltimore City who may experience one of the most murderous years on record. We want to hear what they think about the governor’s proposal. 

  According to internal polling obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, an astonishing 88% of black voters support Hogan’s plan to increase police funding. The poll was conducted by an outside group with relations to Hogan, showing 64% of black voters “strongly support” the governor’s plan to re-fund state and local police agencies,” while 24% “somewhat support.” Across racial lines, 89% and 74% of white and Hispanic voters support it, respectively

  

  Efforts by Democrats to defund the police and demoralize officers have backfired. The movement began after the Ferguson and Baltimore Riots, and ever since, the city has experienced some of the most violent crimes on record. 

  Currently, there is no law and order on the streets of Baltimore. Hogan said it’s the worst possible time to reduce police funding because it would undermine public safety. He advocated for more investing and beefing up budgets to restore the peace in the metro area.  

  However, across party lines, Democrat politicians slammed the governor’s plan, calling it “misguided” and the wrong measure to make communities safer. 

  Hogan pointed specifically to Baltimore and said, “people are being shot nearly every single day” in the city, “and we all have an obligation to do something about it right now.” He said, “I want those families and all of the victims of this violence to know that we will not stop pursuing those criminals who are terrorizing our community.”

  The defund movement may be popular with some wealthy (white) elites, activists on the extreme left. Still, there’s the silent majority of black folks who oppose defunding the police, according to a recent Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies and Harris Poll. 

  Most of all, Americans want police, prosecutors, and judges to uphold the law because the law is the law, which makes a society civil. Progressive cities that attempt to dismantle or undermine the law and policing cause more harm than good with surging violent crime to show forth. 

  This past summer, in Oakland, California, black families stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the police against Antifa’s “defund the police” chaos. 

  Ordinary people across America, no matter their race, desire law-and-order, and with that comes prosperity.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 22:10

• This $1.6 Trillion Market Could Cease To Exist Soon
  This $1.6 Trillion Market Could Cease To Exist Soon

  By Bloomberg Markets Live commentators Ye Xie and Amy Li

  By now, it’s clear that Beijing is greatly discouraging, if not completely forbidding, listings of Chinese tech companies in the U.S. What’s unclear is what Beijing will do with existing Chinese ADRs, an overwhelming majority of which used variable-interest entities to circumvent Chinese laws to get listed.

  Even if Beijing doesn’t demand the likes of Alibaba and Baidu dismantle their VIEs immediately, the authorities have signaled that Hong Kong, instead of New York, is now the preferred capital market for China Inc. Over time, the $1.6 trillion ADR market may become a footnote in history books.

  Bloomberg reported that China plans to ban companies from listing overseas through VIEs. But companies using such structures would still be allowed to pursue IPOs in Hong Kong, subject to regulatory approval. The China Securities Regulatory Commission quickly denied the report, without giving details.

  The controversial VIE structure, designed to bypass Chinese restrictions on foreign investment in sensitive sectors including the internet industry, has been used by most Chinese ADRs for decades. It allows a Chinese firm to transfer profits to an offshore entity, whose shares foreign investors can own. There’s always been an argument over why the best companies should be allowed to skirt Chinese laws and enrich foreigners, while depriving local investors opportunities to benefit from the crown jewels of the economy. As Paul Gillis, professor at Peking University, put it bluntly: “The VIE has always made a mockery of rule of law in China.”

  

  Washington is also increasing security over VIEs, deeming they lack transparency and legal protection for investors. In other words, both sides would be happy to do away with VIEs.

  But with billions of dollars at stake, outlawing the VIEs and demanding an immediate delisting would cause massive disruption and damage China’s reputation. Listing VIEs in Hong Kong may be still allowed, suggesting “we shouldn’t worry about the big hammer dropping on existing VIEs, as that would contradict Beijing’s stance re VIE listing in the HK,” noted Jason Hsu, chief investment officer of Rayliant Global Advisors.

  What could happen is that the existing VIEs get “grandfathered,” but ADRs are encouraged to pursue dual-listings in Hong Kong.  “Perhaps over time, as most of the liquidity shifts toward the HK venue, with the U.S. listing taking on a diminished role, the concern would become a non-concern,” said Hsu.

  

  The fate of VIEs isn’t the only concern for Chinese ADRs. Under a law (HFCA) passed under the Trump administration in December, Chinese companies may face delisting if they refuse to hand over financial information to American regulators, a demand that Beijing has refused so far. “Unless something unexpected happens, the Chinese ADR market should be eliminated within three years because of HFCA,” said Jesse Fried, professor at Harvard Law School. “Even absent the HFCA, China might have prevented companies from listing in the U.S. to build up its own markets and have greater control over the companies. But the U.S. government seems to be doing China’s work for it.”

  With all this going on, trading activity in most Chinese ADRs has greatly diminished since the tightening of regulations during the summer. The average daily trading volume for Didi, for example, has declined to 31 million shares since July, from 288 million in June when it was listed. In aggregate, the trading volume of Chinese ADRs has declined 44% since July, from the first half of the year.

  This may be where we are going.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 21:50

• Stunning Images Reveal Downtown San Francisco Is Boarded Up Amid Mass Looting 
  Stunning Images Reveal Downtown San Francisco Is Boarded Up Amid Mass Looting 

  San Francisco is spiraling out of control amid a massive wave of “smash-and-grab” gangs targeting retail stores. Progressives have transformed the metro area into a liberal hell-hole of surging violent crime. Retail thefts have dramatically increased due to the recent passage of ‘Proposition 47,’ which lowers the penalty for theft. 

  By now, readers are well familiar with nearly two dozen Walgreens stores in San Francisco that have closed up shop due to the high rate of thefts (read: here & here).

  Lately, organized crime gangs have been targeting ultra-luxury retailers, such as Louis Vuitton stores. There was also an eighty-person flash mob that looted a Nordstrom in the Bay Area last week. 

  As a result of all the looting and failed progressive leadership doing nothing about the smash-and-grab crimes, retailers have taken things into their own hands by boarding up windows and doors. 

  

  Ahead of Christmas, here’s what the liberal utopia of downtown San Francisco looks like:

  This is what downtown San Francisco looks like right now.

  (🧵1/x) pic.twitter.com/V1nrHs7Iqf

  — Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021

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  pic.twitter.com/XKAsS1MoSJ

  — Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021

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  pic.twitter.com/aUNRl81svV

  — Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021

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  pic.twitter.com/dgXp9OXiA5

  — Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021

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  pic.twitter.com/IA6rxOefVL

  — Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021

  Twitter user Michelle Tandler who captured photos of downtown said, “I have no words right now to convey the shock and disappointment I feel towards our local government. My hands are trembling I am so angry at our leaders. This is their doing.”

  Boarded windows > broken windows.

  This is what happens when the criminal justice system doesn’t work.

  San Francisco has become lawless and residents and businesses are going into self-protection mode.

  The stats are fictitious. Nobody reports. People are hunkering down.

  We are all over the news.

  A shiny example of what a progressive-run city looks like.

  I believe our government is more akin to a regime than a body of public servants. San Franciscans — this is our doing. It’s up to us to reverse the trend.

  It’s only a matter of time before progressive California lawmakers come under fire and are booted out of office for their failed policies. For civil society to work, law and order need to be restored. 

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 21:30

• US Troop Pullout Date Of Dec.31 Nears, But Iraqis Are Skeptical
  US Troop Pullout Date Of Dec.31 Nears, But Iraqis Are Skeptical

  Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

  Recent reports on the deal to withdraw US combat forces from Iraq suggest that the process is just 15 days away. The hope is that they would be completed before the December 31 deadline, as Iraq’s military assures.

  That’s what the Iraqis want, but informed by the last 17+ years of US occupation, most are very skeptical. They’ve a right to be, too, as the Pentagon has already said troops will remain in Iraq beyond December 31.

  

  “US combat troops stationed in Iraq are scheduled to leave the country in 15 days, the Iraqi army’s spokesman said on Thursday,” The National wrote based on military statements late last week.

  “Baghdad and Washington announced in July that the full withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq would be completed by the end of this year,” the report indicated. “Training and advising missions, however, would continue.”

  Over the past few years the US coalition presence has continued under the guise of fighting ISIS, despite the Islamic State having long been dismantled and driven underground. The majority of the some 2,500 or more US troops there have been continued training Iraq’s army.

  Analysts say there will be no real withdrawal in December, but rather the US will just change the name of the mission and try to spin it as something else. Effectively, Iraq will see a withdrawal only on paper.

  Some fear that if the US doesn’t withdraw according to the timetable, pro-Iran Iraqi militias could launch attacks…

  Iraq Militias, Seeing Taliban’s Success, Plan to Force U.S. Troops Out After Dec. 31 https://t.co/FFp8IQzRAw

  — Ruth Anderson (@Ruthie19) November 23, 2021

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  Past times when the US did this, they went to substantial effort to spin this as keeping promises. This time around, it seems they’re leaving it up to Iraq’s military to manage the narrative.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 21:10

• Aussie Police Arrest Teen 'Fugitives' Who Escaped From COVID Internment Camp
  Aussie Police Arrest Teen ‘Fugitives’ Who Escaped From COVID Internment Camp

  Three teenagers who escaped a Northern Australian Covid internment camp were arrested by police, who say they don’t believe they came into contact with members of the nearby community and “the health risk to the community was very low,” adding “But there is absolutely no excuse for the actions of these three this morning.”

  

  According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the three teens from the Binjari community near Katherine, aged 15, 16 and 17, tested negative for the virus yesterday. They had been confined to quarantine for being ‘close contacts of positive cases,’ only to scale a fence and escape at 4:30 am Wednesday morning.

  NT Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker said officers found the trio on the edge of Palmerston and arrested them after a chase on foot.

  He said the young people are still being interviewed but “early indications” were they had not had any contact with members of the public.

  The facility is housing people affected by the  Katherine region COVID-19 outbreak as well as returned travellers from repatriation flights, including a man who tested positive for the Omicron variant on Monday.

  Each of the teens faces a fine of up to $5,024. According to Chalker, they will beef up CCTV coverage at the facility, and that they would discuss making more contact with lonely residents whose isolation ‘may have been a trigger’ for the escape.

  “I also want to point to the overwhelming compliance that we’ve had, given several hundred people have been placed into the Centre of National Resilience linked to the clusters from Robinson River, Katherine, Binjari and Rockhole,” he said.

  

  Their escape set off a police manhunt, which included highway checkpoints.

  BREAKING: Police set up checkpoints after several wards escaped from government quarantine facility in Howard Springs, Australia. So far, three fugitives have been caught; all three tested negative for COVID-19.https://t.co/CKjJ5pbadepic.twitter.com/X04pm3Ox3m

  — Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) December 1, 2021

  This is what happens when you let tyrants run Bartertown…

  

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 20:50

• As US Retailers Struggle Against Smash-And-Grab Flash Mobs, Liberals Blame "White Supremacy"
  As US Retailers Struggle Against Smash-And-Grab Flash Mobs, Liberals Blame “White Supremacy”

  Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  Americans are facing a new type of crime wave that got its start in the mad liberal laboratory, where the utopian notion that going soft on criminals is going terribly awry. While threatening the traditional brick and mortar shopping experience with extinction, and making communities a living hell, the left needs to stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

  

  Apparently unwilling to wait for Black Friday discounts, roaming gangs of young men are descending on retail outlets and pharmacies in flash mobs, clearing out the store shelves in a matter of seconds as clerks look on helplessly.

  $100k in handbags 👜 stolen at a Louis Vuitton store near Chicago! pic.twitter.com/jaElFgbkWO

  — Asian Crime Report (@activeasian) November 19, 2021

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  In one pre-Thanksgiving raid, about 90 individuals stormed a Nordstrom outlet in Walnut Creek, situated in the San Francisco Bay Area. Members of the masked mob pepper-sprayed one employee, and assaulted another with a knife before making off with an estimated $100,000 in merchandise. Many of the looters made their getaway in some 25 vehicles parked out front.

  Disturbingly, as this sort of mayhem unfolds in major cities across the country, liberals seem more preoccupied with determining how to define the criminal acts.

  Lorenzo Boyd, PhD, Professor of Criminal Justice & Community Policing at the University of New Haven, and a retired veteran police officer, is just one academic who seems more obsessed with semantics than digging to the root of the problem.

  “Looting is a term that we typically use when people of color or urban dwellers are doing something,” Boyd remarked in an interview with ABC7 news channel.

  “We tend not to use that term for other people when they do the exact same thing.”

  And by “other people” it is abundantly clear who Boyd is referencing.

  It’s looting. Just like there were riots in Kenosha, not just protests. https://t.co/trvUHxsCHU pic.twitter.com/nmdUTg6IXT

  — Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) November 23, 2021

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  Martin Reynolds, Co-executive director of the Robert C. Maynard Institute of Journalism Education, invited listeners to compare the current wave of flash mob thefts to the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, when many marginalized New Orleans residents, the majority of them Black, were labeled looters for stealing from local businesses.

  “This seems like it’s an organized smash and grab robbery,” Reynold said, speaking about the current phenomenon of flash mobs.

  “This doesn’t seem like looting. We’re thinking of scenarios where first responders are completely overwhelmed. And folks, often may be on their own,” he said.

  While both academics do make some valid points, there is a risk of liberals getting trapped in a game of semantics that eventually leads to social disaster. More on that in a moment. At the same time, the radical progressives wish to ignore the fact that the primary reason for these crimes happening at all is because they went soft on crime.

  Back in 2014, the Democrats in California passed ballot initiative Proposition 47, which legislates that theft of less than $950 in merchandise is considered to be a nonviolent misdemeanor. In other words, such cases are rarely prosecuted. The repercussions of such stupidity should not have been hard to predict.

  Prop. 47 led to a rise in the larceny theft rate of about 135 per 100,000 residents, an increase of close to 9 percent compared to the 2014 rate, according to a report by the Public Policy Institute of California. Police Chief David Swing, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, responded, saying that the PPIC’s conclusions “are consistent with what police chiefs across the state have seen since 2014.”

  But for store owners in California and elsewhere, there is no need for special reports. The damage from the shortsighted legislation is abundantly clear.

  “Theft in Walgreens’ San Francisco stores is four times the average for stores elsewhere in the country, and the chain spends 35 times more on security guards in the city than elsewhere,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle, discussing just one of the myriad casualties of Prop 47.

  Experts caution use of ‘looting’ in describing rash of Bay Area smash and grabs https://t.co/dQfftRG84T

  — ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) November 23, 2021

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  Compounded with the problem of a legal system that is increasing willing to let criminals walk, a confab of writers, agitators and academics are more inclined to see the ‘poetic justice’ of young marauders clearing out stores in coordinated flash mobs.

  Last year, during the street protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer called looting in the Windy City “reparation” for past crimes committed against Black people.

  “I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci’s or a Macy’s or a Nike because that makes sure that that person eats,” Ariel Atkins screamed at a rally outside the South Loop police station.

  “That’s a reparation,” Atkins said.

  “Anything they want to take, take it because these businesses have insurance.”

  But even before George Floyd had become a household name, self-described agitator Vickie Osterweil had penned a book entitled, ‘In Defense of Looting,’ provided an apology for the act of looting before it was cool.

  Beginning by explaining that the word comes from the Hindi, lút, which means “goods” or “spoils,” Osterweil (who wrote the book under the name ‘Willie Osterweil,’ apparently at a different stage in life) goes on to argue that the idea of property in the United States is “derived through whiteness and through Black oppression, through the history of slavery and settler domination of the country.”

  Funny how many of the oppressed and downtrodden of the world are willing to be consoled by Gucci bags, Samsung televisions and Nike tennis shoes. But I digress.

  Osterweil goes off on a massively contradictory spiel, somehow equating the theft of property with liberation from the “White man’s world.”

  “Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police; it gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected,” she says. “And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. And I think that’s a part of it that doesn’t really get talked about — that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory.

  How looting and stealing could help a person “imagine a world that could be” it is difficult to imagine, but the left must do better than merely coddling and apologizing for the criminals in their midst. More than just midterms are at stake.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 20:30

• Fierce Taliban vs. Iran Clashes Break Out On Afghan Border
  Fierce Taliban vs. Iran Clashes Break Out On Afghan Border

  Fierce clashes erupted Wednesday between the Taliban and Iranian forces along Afghanistan’s western border, Reuters reports based on local eyewitness accounts. Battlefield videos have also begun emerging showing gunfights on the border in the Nimruz region in the country’s southwest.

  The Afghan side is claiming that Iranian border patrols crossed into Afghan territory, resulting in an armed confrontation and firefight. “Amaj News based in Kabul also quoted local sources as saying that Iranian forces used heavy weapons and the Taliban dispatched armored American Humvees to confront Iran’s border troops,” regional news source Iran International observed.

  First clashes today between #Taliban & #Iran forces on #Afghanistan border today.

  Local Afghan media reporting that Taliban took control of 3 Iranian border checkpoints: pic.twitter.com/c5bpXD8tWj

  — Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) December 1, 2021

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  In addition to the American Humvees, ironically enough, it’s also likely that US weapons and ammunition were used by the Taliban militants, given the hardline Islamist group had last August captured many millions of dollars worth of US equipment as the Pentagon rapidly withdrew from the country.

  Hours following the intense clash, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency called it a “border misunderstanding” while denying reports that Taliban fighters had captured an Iranian outpost. Some unverified videos circulating in regional social media have claimed a small Iranian border base was captured and ransacked by the Taliban.

  Local Afghan news sources are additionally claiming some Iranian soldiers were captured. If true it would prove hugely embarrassing for the Islamic Republic…

  #BREAKING Fierce clashes have erupted between Iranian border guards and Taliban forces along Iran-Afghanistan border.
  Sources told @aamajnews24 several Iranian border posts have been captured by Taliban fighters pic.twitter.com/v88lhQWcXZ

  — Reza Khaasteh (@Khaaasteh) December 1, 2021

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  “The clashes ended and Iran is discussing the dispute over the border with the Taliban,” Tasnim reported, however, there’s little that’s been confirmed – and likely there could be further firefights that break out.

  There are also unconfirmed reports from the ground that the Taliban took on casualties.

  #AFG Taliban soldiers clashing with Iranian border forces in Kaaang district, Nimroz on the Iranian border. Fighting stopped this evening. There are casualties and fatalities among Taliban, several sources in Nimroz province including doctors at a hospital tells me. pic.twitter.com/XC15LvkEut

  — BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) December 1, 2021

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  Beginning in July the Taliban started capturing increasingly important border crossings with Iran as the US withdrawal was initiated.

  The Taliban advance so near the border had placed Iran’s border forces on high alert, which included deployments of elite IRGC units in some places. At the time the IRGC said it would crackdown on any possible drug smuggling or any unauthorized breaches of Iran’s border. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 20:10

• Dying COVID-19 Patient Recovers After Court Orders Hospital To Administer Ivermectin
  Dying COVID-19 Patient Recovers After Court Orders Hospital To Administer Ivermectin

  Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

  An elderly COVID-19 patient has recovered after a court order allowed him to be treated with ivermectin, despite objections from the hospital in which he was staying, according to the family’s attorney

  After an Illinois hospital insisted on administering expensive remdesivir to the patient and the treatment failed, his life was saved after a court ordered that an outside medical doctor be allowed to use the inexpensive ivermectin to treat him, over the hospital’s strenuous objections.

  Ivermectin tablets have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat humans with intestinal strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis, two conditions caused by parasitic worms. Some topical forms of ivermectin have been approved to treat external parasites such as head lice and for skin conditions such as rosacea. The drug is also approved for use on animals.

  Remdesivir has been given emergency use authorization by the FDA for treating certain categories of human patients that have been hospitalized with COVID-19. But the use of ivermectin to treat humans suffering from COVID-19 has become controversial because the FDA hasn’t approved its so-called off-label use to treat the disease, which is caused by the CCP virus also known as SARS-CoV-2.

  Critics have long accused the FDA of dragging its heels and being dangerously over-cautious and indifferent to human suffering in its approach to regulating pharmaceuticals, a criticism that led to then-President Donald Trump signing the Right to Try Act in May 2018. The law, according to the FDA, “is another way for patients who have been diagnosed with life-threatening diseases or conditions who have tried all approved treatment options and who are unable to participate in a clinical trial to access certain unapproved treatments.”

  Medical doctors are free to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19, even though the FDA claims that its off-label use could be harmful in some circumstances.

  Clinical human trials of the drug for use against COVID-19 are currently in progress, according to the agency.

  The drug “most definitely” saved the elderly patient’s life “because his condition changed right immediately after he took ivermectin,” attorney for the family, Kirstin M. Erickson of Chicago-based Mauck and Baker, told The Epoch Times.

  

  Sun Ng, 71, who was visiting the United States from Hong Kong to celebrate his granddaughter’s first birthday, became ill with COVID-19 and within days was close to death. He was hospitalized on Oct. 14 at Edward Hospital, in Naperville, Illinois, a part of the Edward-Elmhurst Health system. His condition worsened dramatically and he was intubated and placed on a ventilator a few days later.

  Ng’s only child, Man Kwan Ng, who holds a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering, did her own research and decided that her father should take ivermectin, which some medical doctors believe is effective against COVID-19, despite the FDA’s guidance to the contrary.

  But against the daughter’s wishes, the hospital refused to administer ivermectin and denied access to a physician willing to administer it.

  The daughter went to court on her father’s behalf and on Nov. 1, Judge Paul M. Fullerton of the Circuit Court of DuPage County granted a temporary restraining order requiring the hospital to allow ivermectin to be given to the patient. The hospital refused to comply with the court order.

  At a subsequent court hearing on Nov. 5, Fullerton said one physician who testified described Sun Ng as “basically on his death bed,” with a mere 10 to 15 percent chance of survival. Ivermectin can have minor side effects such as dizziness, itchy skin, and diarrhea at the dosage suggested for Ng, but the “risks of these side effects are so minimal that Mr. Ng’s current situation outweighs that risk by one-hundredfold,” Fullerton said.

  The judge issued a preliminary injunction that day directing the hospital to “immediately allow … temporary emergency privileges” to Ng’s physician, Dr. Alan Bain, “solely to administer Ivermectin to this patient.”

  The hospital resisted the order on Nov. 6 and 7, denying Bain access to his patient. The hospital claimed that it couldn’t let Bain in because he wasn’t vaccinated against COVID-19 and that its chief medical officer wasn’t available to “proctor” Bain administering ivermectin.

  The daughter’s attorneys filed an emergency report with the court on Nov. 8 and Fullerton heard from both sides. The judge admonished the hospital and restated that it must allow Bain inside over a period of 15 days to do his job. When the hospital filed a motion to stay the order, Fullerton denied it, again directing the facility to comply.

  The ivermectin appears to have worked, and Sun Ng has recovered from COVID-19. He was discharged by the hospital on Nov. 27.

  “My father’s recovery is amazing,” his daughter, Man Kwan Ng, said in a statement.

  “My father is a tough man. He was working so hard to survive, and of course, with God’s holding hands. He weaned off oxygen about three days after moving out of the ICU. He started oral feeding before hospital discharge. He returned home without carrying a bottle of oxygen and a feeding tube installed to his stomach. He can now stand with a walker at the bedside and practice stepping. After being sedated for a month on a ventilator in ICU, his performance is beyond our expectations. Praise the Lord.”

  Attorney Erickson said the “happy” end result here provides “hope for the nation.”

  “We get calls from all over the place,” she told The Epoch Times.

  “People that want to sue hospitals after someone’s passed, they wanted to get the medicine and couldn’t. Obviously, that’s a different, difficult case because a medical malpractice case is very difficult.”

  People just want to do what’s best for their family members and “find ivermectin themselves” and have it on hand “and use it when someone starts to develop symptoms,” Erickson said.

  She said her legal team and client were “really thankful” that Ng recovered and “we salute” Judge Fullerton, Dr. Bain, and others, as well as the hospital for abiding by the court order in the end.

  For more information on ivermectin and how to obtain it, Erickson said people should visit the website of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance at Covid19CriticalCare.com.

  Keith Hartenberger, system director for public relations for Edward-Elmhurst Health, declined to comment.

  “We’re not able to comment due to patient privacy guidelines,” he told The Epoch Times by email.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 19:50

• Cook County Blows Past 1,000 Homicides This Year In First Since 1994
  Cook County Blows Past 1,000 Homicides This Year In First Since 1994

  The greater Chicago-area Cook County has this week surpassed a grim record – for the first time in almost three decades seeing more than 1,000 homicides in one year. With still a month to go until the close of 2021 the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office put out figures on Tuesday showing 1,009 total homicides.

  The last time the county – which is the most populous within the state of Illinois encompassing the Chicagoland area and Evanston city – saw 1,000 homicides in a one-year period was in 1994, when there were 1,141 killings.

  

  According to local CBS-2, “Chicago alone has had 777 homicides so far this year, according to the medical examiner’s office. That’s more than the total number of homicides reported by Chicago Police all of last year, when CPD reported 769 homicides.”

  Further, the medical examiner’s office records show that “the vast majority of homicide victims have been Black, with 81% of the victims identified as African American. Latinos accounted for about 15% of the county’s homicide victims.”

  The vast majority of these deaths are by gun violence. But strangely enough, Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot who has lately been at war with her own police department over the vaccination status disclosure mandate, has tried to shift blame for the soaring violent crime gripping the city’s streets onto (what else?) the coronavirus pandemic…

  “There’s no question that the COVID-related impact on the public safety system in Chicago, in New York, in L.A., D.C. and other cities across the country is real. And what we’ve got to continue to do is make sure that we’re demanding of our courts and our prosecutors that they hold violent people accountable and keep them off our streets,” the mayor told MSNBC last month.

  Most recently, Thanksgiving weekend saw over 40 people shot, including five killed, which means Cook County could possibly be headed toward an all-time high of shootings before 2021 is out. 

  One report after the bloody holiday weekend described Chicago as “a war zone” while featuring footage of someone firing a machine gun:

  This it the terrifying moment machine gun shooting erupted on the streets of Chicago in a bloody Thanksgiving weekend of gun violence. 

  …Footage posted online shows a man, who does not appear to have a gun, running through the streets of Chicago as machine gun fire erupts nearby.  

  ‘Chicago is a war zone’: Terrifying video shows MACHINE GUN fire erupting on the streets in bloody Thanksgiving weekend of violence as three are killed and another 40 are shot – pic.twitter.com/anUd9XR7Rd

  — Blanche Victoria (@tammytabby) November 30, 2021

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  It’s certainly not the first time in recent months that fully automatic gunfire has erupted on Chicago streets.

  As one previously widely viewed social media video from last summer showed, gunfights have on occasion broken out in broad daylight…

  Chicago’s Gone Wild: Gang Member Machine Gun Shootout Called Worst Violence Since Al Capone Days!! pic.twitter.com/gqrRo5wuQT

  — Willie D (@WillieDLIVE) June 26, 2021

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  Meanwhile, the city of Chicago and Mayor Lightfoot’s hugely controversial vaccine status disclosure mandate for police officers remains at a tense stalemate.

  Just under a month ago an Illinois judge handed the police union a major victory, ruling that an arbitrator must examine the policy before the city can implement it based on prior union agreements and rules with the city. The vaccine mandate order remains blocked for the time being. Many observers and Chicagoans themselves have expressed alarm that if patrol officers were ever actually removed from the streets for failure to comply with the pandemic-related mandates, the chaotic violence would spiral out of control even beyond already existing levels.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 19:30

• France Deploys Military Police To Caribbean Islands Amid Unrest Over Vaccine Mandate
  France Deploys Military Police To Caribbean Islands Amid Unrest Over Vaccine Mandate

  Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,

  The French government has deployed military police to the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe amid intensifying protests against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other pandemic related restrictions.

  

  Following several weeks of unrest and violent protests over COVID-19 measures—including a vaccine mandate for health care workers—police reinforcements were sent to the French Caribbean territories on Tuesday.

  Compulsory vaccinations for health workers, a measure already introduced on the French mainland, had fuelled resentment among the islands’ population.

  Sebastien Lecornu, the minister for France’s overseas territories, said 70 gendarmes had arrived in Martinique earlier in the day, in addition to two squadrons that were deployed from metropolitan France unannounced, to help clear road blocks.

  

  French Overseas Minister Sebastien Lecornu speaks as he attends a press conference during his official visit in Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, on Nov. 30, 2021. (Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images)

  “Social dialogue is not possible without a sound basis and that sound basis is the re-establishment of freedoms … and our capacity to re-establish order,” Lecornu told a press conference in Martinique after meeting its leaders and trade unions.

  In Guadeloupe, home to some 400,000 residents, 70 police reinforcements were sent on Tuesday along with 10 extra SWAT team members to help shore up security, Lecornu said.

  

  Protestors hold flags of the ‘Confederation Generale du Travail de la Guadeloupe’ CGTG Trade union as they demonstrate against compulsory vaccination in front of the sub-prefecture of Pointe-a-Pitre, in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, on Nov. 29, 2021. (Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images)

  There is a historic mistrust of the government’s handling of health crises in Guadeloupe after many people were systematically exposed to toxic pesticides used in banana plantations in the 1970s. Protesters have insisted they should be allowed to make their own choices about health treatment.

  Protests have continued although Paris last week said it would postpone a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public sector workers amid the widespread protests.

  The vaccine mandate and other COVID-19 restrictions fanned long-standing grievances over living standards and the relationship between France’s Caribbean islands and Paris.

  French President Emmanuel Macron has described the ongoing unrest as an “explosive” situation.

  

  French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on Aug. 27, 2021. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

  More than three dozen protesters have been detained over the past week in Guadeloupe, while numerous reports have emerged of looting and individuals erecting street barricades to slow traffic.

  The situation remains “very difficult” in Guadeloupe, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told France Inter radio on Tuesday. “There are still scenes of extreme violence with police forces being shot at with real ammunition,” he added.

  Last week, journalists from French television, news and photo agencies were attacked, media group Altice said in a statement.

  In Martinique, an island of 375,000 some protesters reportedly shot at police officers and firefighters, according to Agence France-Presse. Local authorities said one police officer was seriously injured and needed surgery.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 19:10

• JPM's Kolanovic Suggests Omicron Could Be Positive For Risk And "End The Covid Pandemic"
  JPM’s Kolanovic Suggests Omicron Could Be Positive For Risk And “End The Covid Pandemic”

  Two days ago, amid one of the biggest market routs since March 2020 and following the worst Black Red Friday for markets in history sparked by the panic and chaos over the brand new Omicron variant, we asked a simple, contrarian question: “Will The Omicron Virus Turn Out To Actually Be Bullish For Stocks“

  Will The Omicron Virus Turn Out To Actually Be Bullish For Stocks https://t.co/WoA9irHqdy

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 29, 2021

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  Specifically, we quoted the South African doctors who first discovered the variant – so they should know – who said over the weekend that not only is Omicron much more transmissable Omicron variant “extremely mild” but also “far less stable” than Delta or previous variants due to its numerous, 30+ spike-protein mutations, which got us thinking: “one could make the point that while Omicron could soon become the dominant strain due to its higher R-nought (or pace of transmission), that could be a blessing in disguise as it pushes out the much more dangerous (and more stable) delta strain.”

  A few hours later, none other than Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman apparently read this take because shortly after he tweeted what we said, namely that “while it is too early to have definitive data, early reported data suggest that the Omicron virus causes ‘mild to moderate’ symptoms (less severity) and is more transmissible. If this turns out to be true, this is bullish not bearish for markets.”

  A thought. While it is too early to have definitive data, early reported data suggest that the Omicron virus causes ‘mild to moderate’ symptoms (less severity) and is more transmissible. If this turns out to be true, this is bullish not bearish for markets.

  — Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) November 29, 2021

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  Others quickly caught on to this view, including not just hedge fund managers but also respected physicians, in this case the top Russian scientist Anatoly Altshtein, a virologist at the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, which pioneered Russia’s Sputnik V jab, and who also echoed what we said, namely that  “we already see Omicron has many mutations, more than Delta. More than thirty in a single gene of its spike protein. This is too many, and it means the virus has an unstable genome. As a rule, this sort of infectious agent becomes less dangerous, because evolutionarily, an overwhelming number of mutations leads to a weakening of the virus’s ability to cause disease.”

  According to the professor, if this rule holds true, then Omicron would be fatal in only a small fraction of cases, and would become like other common seasonal infections.

  “We shouldn’t be afraid that the Omicron variant is spreading widely,” said Professor Altshtein, “but that it could turn out to be the most pathogenic variant, making infection worse.”

  The latest facts confirm this take: as we learned today (much to the chagrin of bulls), the first Omicron case was detected in San Francisco in a traveler who returned from South Africa on Nov 22. Yet while the variant clearly appears to be highly transmissable, what the media ignored to note is that the individual – who was fully vaccinated – had only mild symptoms that are improving.

  Hardly the extinction level event that the starved for clicks mainstream media is trying to make it out to be.

  So fast forward to today when none other than JPMorgan’s head quant Marko Kolanovic – whose long running growth-to-value thesis just suffered a spectacular meltdown in recent days, also paraphrased what we said, and in a note whose title is oddly familiar, namely “What if “Nu” variant Omicron ends up positive for risk?“…

  

  … reaches the same conclusion as us for the same two reasons: Omicron is i) more transmissable and ii) less severe, which means it will eventually crowd out the Delta and other dangerous variants, and could in fact “accelerate the end of the pandemic.”

  Before we get to the punchline, a quick detour into how Kolanovic explains the violent stock rout observed in the past 4 days, which he attributes to two main sources of confusion: government responses and tranmissibility assessments, to wit:

  What was the timeline and how did the market react on the Omicron variant? Despite Omicron being around for several weeks, a media blitz happened on Thanksgiving evening, one of the lowest points of market liquidity for the whole year, prompting a crash in various  assets sensitive to global growth and recovery such as Oil. A second blow to markets was delivered shortly after, also in the middle of night in the U.S. (Monday midnight), with the Moderna story (here) that was later largely invalidated by reports from Pfizer, Oxford, the WHO, and the Israeli Health Ministry (here, here, here). Many clients have told us they are not worried about Omicron itself, but the reaction of governments. For example, currently flights are restricted from several African countries that don’t have Omicron, while on the other hand, flights are not restricted from European countries that have cases, and similar apparent inconsistencies.

  Another source of confusion comes from assessments of Omicron’s transmissibility. Broadly circulated claims that the new variant is 500 times more infectious than Delta (here) seem implausible. For instance, assume that R0 for Delta is 4, so Omicron would have an R0 of 2,000, meaning one infected person should result in 2,000 new infections? This is highly unlikely when on average an individual has 16 daily contacts (here), and, by that math, the whole world would have been already infected in less than a week (i.e., 3 cycles would result in 2000³ = 8Bn infections). This figure came from extrapolating transmissibility from relative spread of Delta and Omicron, but not accounting for the fact that Delta is being spread in significant part via breakthrough infections in a significantly immune population (e.g., via vaccines or recovery). In simple terms, when older variants are spreading via breakthrough infections, new variants will always appear to be significantly more transmissible than older ones. This was explained in work by Gabriela Gomes (e.g., see here).

  Which brings us to Kolanovic’s punchline which, for what it’s worth, is identical to ours:

  While it is likely that Omicron is more transmissible, early reports suggest it may also be less deadly – which would fit into the pattern of virus evolution observed historically. Should these trends be confirmed in the coming weeks, could the Omicron variant ultimately prove to be a positive for risk markets, in the sense that it could accelerate the end of the pandemic?

  If a less severe and more transmissible virus quickly crowds out more severe variants, could the Omicron variant be a catalyst to transform a deadly pandemic into something more similar to seasonal flu? That development would fit with historical patterns (duration and number of waves) of previous respiratory virus pandemics, especially given the broad availability of vaccines and new therapeutics that are expected to work on all known variants (Pfizer, Merck).

  Of course, it goes without saying that Kolanovic’s perpetual optimism is dictated by a simple overarching philosophy: he needs to always find a bullish spin in every situation, especially when JPM clients are surely calling him every hour and asking why the growth-to-value rotation he has been pitching so aggressively for the past year just imploded. The Croat admits as much:

  If the market were to anticipate that [positive Omicron] scenario – Omicron could be a catalyst for steepening (not flattening) the yield curve, rotation from growth to value, selloff in COVID and lockdown beneficiaries and rally in reopening themes. Also, if that scenario were to happen, instead of skipping two letters and naming it Omicron, the WHO could have skipped all the way to Omega. As such, we view the recent selloff in these segments as an opportunity to buy the dip in cyclicals, commodities and reopening themes, and to position for higher bond yields and steepening.

  The bolded sentence doesn’t surprise us: unlike the Marko Koalnovic of old who skeptically, rationally and diligently analyzed every possible outcome with a focus on the downside, ever since his promotions the head JPM quant has just one function – to spin every possible scenario into a positive one (which with the help of the Fed’s $8+ trillion balance sheet wasn’t all that difficult). As such, his attempts to spin Omicron as a positive event is hardly a shock. That said, for the very same reasons which we discussed first days ago, this is one time when Marko may actually be right and the next few days will reveal if that’s the case.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 18:50

• Satyajit Das Exposes Fintech's "Flim-Flam" Innovation Games
  Satyajit Das Exposes Fintech’s “Flim-Flam” Innovation Games

  Authored by Satyajit Das via NakedCapitalism.com,

  Investment in fin-tech (the untidy agglomeration of finance and technology) has reached a record $91.5 billion, double that of 2020. In the last quarter, there were over 40 fintech unicorns (start-ups valued at over $1 billion). The sector now attracts around 20% of all venture capital. But its looks remarkably like a repeat of the late 1990s, when investors made ill-fated bets on online finance. 

  

  Fintech consists of traditional banking products conveniently packaged up and delivered via an Internet platform or App. Examples include payments (online payment firms like Square or Stripe); lending (supply chain finance (the late Greensill Capital); peer-to-peer lending; buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) or point-of-sale (POS) financing, such as Afterpay, Affirm, Klarna); and deposit taking (online banking start-ups).

  Investors include armoured cash carrier chasing venture capitalists and asset managers, armed with other people’s money. The usual suspects are augmented by financial institutions fearful of digital threats to their businesses. Then, there are former senior bank executives eager to displace their former employers, find profitable homes for their large paydays and continue ‘God’s work’.

  The Fintech recipe is simple:

  …take a function,

  …digitise it,

  …toss in a little jargon – ‘financial engineering’, ‘technological disruption’.

  …season generously with mystique;

  …add some high profile spruikers or fawning media endorsements.

  …Stir and then serve.

  The rules of the game are straightforward.

  First, disguise the true function. Exploiting disclosure loopholes,supply chain finance helps businesses treat borrowings as accounts payable on the balance sheet rather than debt, improving liquidity and reducing leverage.  Unfortunately, it leaves investors and creditors bearing bigger losses when the business finally collapse, as happened with Spain’s Abengoa in 2015, Carillion in 2018and NMC Health in 2020. BNPL is nothing more than unsecured personal finance.

  Second, mask the true economics. For example, in supply chain financing and BNPL, the seller of goods or services receives the sales price less a discount immediately from the financier who is paid back in deferred instalments by the buyer. A 4% discount, a typical BNPL charge to the seller, paid back over two-months translates into usurious funding costs of over 26% per annum. It helps to obscure how the cost is borne. In the case of BNPL, the retailer not the purchaser appears to bear the financing cost -the discount. But if they want to maintain margins, business must put up overall prices, penalising cash buyers who effectively subsidise BNPL users.

  Third, find an attractive demographic. Supply chain finance and peer-to-peer lending targets weaker borrowers. BNPL is aimed at younger, less financially literate clientele, attuned to a world of free everything. Appeals to ‘democratising capital’ can’t hurt.

  Fourth, find a lightly regulated lacunae of finance. Pressure to embrace innovation and facilitate the flow of credit has led to the concept of a ‘regulatory sandbox’, where fintech firms can test ‘innovative’ concepts without stringent rules. For example, specialist supply chain financiers and BNPL firms effectively lend money without being subject to the rules applicable to regulated banks.

  Fifth, increase risk to boost profitability, such as making risky loans, or ignore earnings altogether – few fintech’s are actually profitable. BNPL does not make money or lacks a clear pathway to profitability, onceinterchange, network fees, issuer processing fee, credit losses and funding are considered.

  Sixth, ensure that the real risks remain unknown unknown. Supply chain finance is short term and inappropriate for funding long-term assets, such as plant and equipment, as GFG Alliance (Greensill’s most prominent customer) discovered. A highly concentrated loan portfoliowith large exposures to a few clients is not generally recommended ‘best practice’ banking. It is irregular for financial institutions to entertain large transactions with related parties. In Greensill’s case, it appears to have extended substantial credit to shareholders. It also allegedly funded non-existent future or expected receivables. 

  Fintech lenders frequently undertake soft credit checks and minimal authentication. Former FSA chief Lord Adair Turner argued that the losses which will emerge from peer-to-peer lending will make the worst bankers look like lending geniuses.

  Seventh, solicit investors paranoid about digital disruption whose phones are generally smarter than they are. The reasons for mental dysfunction don’t matter but look for: search for high returns and growth, befuddlement about rapidly changing technology, wealth and confidence gained from previous successes or shame at missing out on a ‘ten-bagger’ (10 times increase on investment), faith in unending state underwriting of asset prices and, of course, TINA (there is no alternative).

  Branding as ‘fin-tech’ beguiles investors, allowing new businesses to attract capital at high valuations. Greensill’s genius was to persuade everyone that it had changed the business of traditional, staid, low margin, short-term secured lending against invoices and accounts receivable into something revolutionary. Softbank reportedly invested US$1.5 billion in Greensill, now presumably lost.

  Eighth, raise a lot of cash and spend it to build market share. Improving banking technology is passé. Most fintech systems consist of an app or user interface sitting on top of clunky, antiquated systems, held together by duct tape. The focus is accelerating customer acquisition which businesses with a wider array of products might be able to monetise.

  The hope is to find this buyer before you run out cash.

  The thing is that fintech could lower banking costs (the cost of transferring funds across borders is punitive) and provide basic, low cost financial services to a large part of the world lacking such access. Some emerging market fintechs do provide genuinely valuable mobile phone banking, micro-loans and simple trade finance for low income individuals and small businesses are. Unfortunately, they are the minority.

  There are other issues. The growth of these businesses promotes a burgeoning shadow banking system whose problems can leach into financial markets, requiring tax-payer funded bailouts.  Greensill resulted in the failure of three small banks and investor losses of around US$3 billion. Exempting proper controls and compliance with regulations designed to maintain financial stability in the name of invention, a willingness to ‘break things’ and ‘fix them later’ is patently dangerous.

  Worryingly for investors, the Fintech model may have peaked. For example, the Reserve Bank of Australia, in a decision likely to be adopted globally, will allow merchants to pass on the costs of BNPL services to customers. With surveys showing that most users would not use the service if there is a cost, a more even competitive field of play and increased competition from banks and credit card providers, Fintech’s future is dimming.

  The world needs real innovation but John Kenneth Galbraith was sceptical about the financial variety, seeing them as merely variants on old designs, novel only in the brief and defective memory of the financial world. Fintech illustrates how, given time, everything old is new again and everything new turns out to be a re-run.

  *  *  *

  Das is a well-recognized derivatives expert who wrote one of the discipline’s important early textbooks as well as popular works, notably Traders, Guns and Money and Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk. His latest books include A Banquet of Consequences – Reloaded (March 2021) and Fortune’s Fool: Australia’s Choices (forthcoming March 2022)

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 18:30

• South Africa Sees Cases Double As White House Extends Federal Mask Mandate
  South Africa Sees Cases Double As White House Extends Federal Mask Mandate

  Update (1800ET): Now that the first case of the omicron variant has been confirmed in the US (even though Dr. Anthony Fauci insists that all of the case’s close contacts have been identified and tested, and that there’s no sign of additional cases – at least not right now), the Biden Administration has decided to extend a federal mask mandate through mid-March.

  The mandate requires travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains and buses, and at airports and train stations.

  President Biden is expected to share his plans for imposing tighter travel restrictions on foreigners on Thursday. The CDC is reportedly already collecting names to give to local authorities so that their viral status can presumably be tracked.

  * * *

  As European countries from Germany, to Austria to the Netherlands tighten lockdown measures amid a surge in COVID cases (while deaths remain slightly elevated but more subdued), the continent’s unelected bureaucrat in chief, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, asked during a speech on Wednesday that EU members consider adopting a vaccine mandate. All members should “think about” imposing mandates of their own in a coordinated fashion that’s in keeping with the Continent’s new approach.

  

  Source: Reuters

  Speaking during a news conference, the European Commission chief suggested that member states need mandates to help prevent the spread of cases and a further spike in infections due to the emergence of new variants, such as the omicron strain.

  “I think it is understandable and appropriate to lead this discussion now, how we can encourage and potentially think about mandatory vaccination within the European Union,” von der Leyen stated, adding that fighting the pandemic requires a “common approach” across the bloc.

  Meanwhile, a former president of EU member Ireland published an editorial in Politico Europe Wednesday slamming the WTO’s refusal to approve sharing of intellectual property that would allow emerging countries to produce their own vaccines.

  Epidemiologists warned us time and again that allowing the virus to spread around the world is a recipe for new mutations to develop and that they will indiscriminately harm us all. This waiver, which has now dominated WTO talks for over a year, is a necessary global solution to end the pandemic. Yet one powerful voice at the WTO has continued to undermine this effort — and that must change.

  Isn’t it interesting how world leaders talk about vaccine mandates, while simultaneously ensuring that emerging countries will need to purchase their jabs from American pharmaceutical giants? But let’s put a pin in that.

  South Africa has seen the number of new COVID cases doubled between Wednesday and Tuesday, according to official data released by the same people who issued the first warnings about the omicron variant.

  What’s more, a top South African health official said the omicron variant would likely still be susceptible to the T-cell response caused by both natural and vaccine-induced causes. But that hasn’t stopped the country from seeing a surge in infections and reinfections, which has been particularly notable among the older population, officials said.

  

  Back in Europe, outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel has proposed new nationwide restrictions on people who haven’t been vaccinated.

  Coincidentally, the WHO said earlier that indications are that most omicron cases will be mild, not severe. Of course, that’s true of delta and all the other strains as well. The organization later said that the world is still “in the midst” of the pandemic.

  But the point is – as even some of South Africa’s top virology experts discussed earlier this week and over the weekend – that even if omicron does break through natural and vaccine-induced protections, infections will likely be mild in nearly all of these patients, and the body’s T-cell response will leave most people protected.

  Confirmed cases of the omicron variant remained fewer than 300 (closer to 250 still by midday) while omicron cases were confirmed for the first time in South Korea (which has already imposed travel restrictions on southern African states), Saudi Arabia and Norway. More cases were found in new locations in the UK, Switzerland, Nigeria, Brazil and elsewhere.

  No cases have been confirmed in the US, but several have been identified in Canada.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Here are some other important stories regarding COVID and the omicron variant:

  • Poland reported 29K new COVID cases, the highest in almost eight months, and 570 fatalities, on Wednesday. More alarming: the Health Ministry said 25% of the deaths were among vaccinated patients, mostly elderly people with comorbidities. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called on the nation to get boosters ahead of Christmas. The country has imposed new restrictions on travelers but hasn’t confirmed a single case of omicron.
  • WHO members voted to start drafting an international agreement to help avoid future pandemics as more cases amid the spread of the omicron variant. The WHO’s members approved a proposal Wednesday that set a deadline of 2024 to try to implement such a measure. They didn’t resolve the biggest disagreement, however: whether the accord should be a legally binding treaty.
  • OECD chief economist Laurence Boone says it would cost $50 billion to vaccinate the world, a sum that pales in comparison to the $10 trillion G-20 countries have spent mitigating the impact of the pandemic. Too bad the US-controlled WTO won’t share the recipe with the emerging world.
  • The EU is preparing to recommend that member states review their travel rules daily. They should pursue a “coordinated approach” and be prepared to impose new controls if necessary.
  • Finally, Israel’s coronavirus czar Salman Zarka said the country should look at mandatory vaccination now that the omicron variant has emerged. “Mandatory vaccination needs to be considered, whether through legislation or otherwise, especially given the fact that not only is the pandemic here, but I fear it will get worse,” Zarka said on 103FM radio. He said he changed his mind following the appearance of omicron, which has been identified in several Israelis.
  • The US is preparing to impose new travel restrictions while the CDC plans to tighten COVID screening and testing at airports around the country by requiring international travelers to have a negative COVID test result from the past 24 hours.
  • WHO adds that vaccine makers shouldn’t rush to rework their vaccines because they’re not sure whether new vaccines are necessary.
  • Austrian lawmakers extended a nationwide lockdown for a second 10-day period to suppress the latest wave of coronavirus infections before the Christmas holiday period.

  Nigeria, meanwhile, has detected a case of omicron from October, the latest piece of evidence to suggest that the variant has likely already spread around the world. The Netherlands says it has found a case of omicron from two weeks ago. Before this, the earliest known sample of the variant was collected on Nov. 9 in South Africa.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/01/2021 – 18:25

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• Escobar: Fauci As Darth Vader Of The COVID Wars
  Escobar: Fauci As Darth Vader Of The COVID Wars

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

  Robert F Kennedy Jr’s The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health should be front-page news in all the news media in the US. Instead, it has been met with the proverbial thundering silence.

  

  Critics seeking to have Kennedy dismissed as a kook trading on a famous name had scored a hit in February, when Instagram permanently deleted his account, allegedly for making false claims about coronavirus and vaccines. Nevertheless, the book, published only a few days ago, is already a certified pop hit on Amazon.

  RFK Jr., chairman of the board of and chief legal counsel for Children’s Health Defense, sets out to deconstruct a New Normal, encroaching upon all of us since early 2020. In my early 2021 book Raging Twenties I have termed this force techno-feudalism.

  Kennedy describes it as “rising totalitarianism,” complete with “mass propaganda and censorship, the orchestrated promotion of terror, the manipulation of science, the suppression of debate, the vilification of dissent and use of force to prevent protest.”

  Focusing on Dr Anthony Fauci as the fulcrum of the biggest story of the 21st century allows RFK Jr to paint a complex canvas of planned militarization and, especially, monetization of medicine, a toxic process managed by Big Pharma, Big Tech and the military/intel complex – and dutifully promoted by mainstream media.

  By now everyone knows that the big winners have been Big Finance, Big Pharma, Big Tech and Big Data, with a special niche for Silicon Valley behemoths.

  Why Fauci?

  RFK Jr. argues that for five decades, he has been essentially a Big Pharma agent, nurturing “a complex web of financial entanglements among pharmaceutical companies and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and its employees that has transformed NIAID into a seamless subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry. Fauci unabashedly promotes his sweetheart relationship with Pharma as a ‘public-private partnership.’”

  Arguably the full contours of this very convoluted story have never before been examined along these lines, extensively documented and with a wealth of links. Fauci may not be a household name outside of the US and especially across the Global South. And yet it’s this global audience that should be particularly interested in his story.

  RFK Jr accuses Fauci of having pursued nefarious strategies since the onset of Covid-19 – from falsifying science to suppressing and sabotaging competitive products that bring lower profit margins.

  Kennedy’s verdict is stark: “Tony Fauci does not do public health; he is a businessman, who has used his office to enrich his pharmaceutical partners and expand the reach of influence that has made him the most powerful – and despotic – doctor in human history.”

  This is a very serious accusation. It’s up to readers to examine the facts of the case and decide whether Fauci is some kind of medical Dr Strangelove.

  No Vitamin D?

  Pride of place goes to the Fauci-privileged modeling that overestimated Covid deaths by 525%, cooked up by fabricator Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College in London, duly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is the model, later debunked, that justified lockdown hysteria all across the planet.

  Kennedy attributes to Canadian vaccine researcher Dr Jessica Rose the charge that Fauci was at the frontline of erasing the notion of natural immunity even as throughout 2020 the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) admitted that people with healthy immune systems bear minimal risk of dying from Covid.

  Dr Pierre Kory, president of Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, was among those who denounced Fauci’s modus operandi of privileging the development of tech vaccines while allowing no space for repurposed medications effective against Covid: “It is absolutely shocking that he recommended no outpatient care, not even Vitamin D.”

  Clinical cardiologist Peter McCullough and his team of frontline doctors tested prophylactic protocols using, for instance, ivermectin – “we had terrific data from medical teams in Bangladesh” – and added other medications such as azithromycin, zinc, Vitamin D and IV Vitamin C. And all this while across Asia there was widespread use of saline nasal lavages.

  By July 1, 2020, McCullough and his team submitted their first, ground-breaking protocol to the American Journal of Medicine. It became the most-downloaded paper in the world helping doctors to treat Covid-19.

  McCullough complained last year that Fauci has never, to date, published anything on how to treat a Covid patient.” He additionally alleged: “Anyone who tries to publish a new treatment protocol will find themselves airtight blocked by the journals that are all under Fauci’s control.”

  It got much worse. McCullough: “The whole medical establishment was trying to shut down early treatment and silence all the doctors who talked about success. A whole generation of doctors just stopped practicing medicine.” (A contrarian view would argue that McCullough got carried away: A million US doctors – the approximate number practicing at any given time – could not all have been in on it.)

  The book argues that the reasons there was a lack of original research on how to fight Covid were the dependence of much-vaunted American academics on the billions of dollars granted by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the fact they were terrified of contradicting Fauci.

  Frontline Covid specialists Kory and McCullough are quoted as charging that Fauci’s suppression of early treatment and off-patent medication was responsible for up to 80% of deaths attributed to Covid in the US.

  How to kill the competition

  The book offers a detailed outline of an alleged offensive by Big Pharma to kill hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) – with research mercenaries funded by the Gates-Fauci axis allegedly misinterpreting and misreporting negative results by employing faulty protocols.

  Kennedy says that Bill Gates by 2020 virtually controlled the whole WHO apparatus, as the largest funder after the US government (before Trump pulled the US out of the WHO) and used the agency to fully discredit HCQ.

  The book also addresses Lancetgate – when the world’s top two scientific journals, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine published fraudulent studies from a nonexistent database owned by a previously unknown company.

  Only a few weeks later both journals – deeply embarrassed and with their hard-earned credibility challenged – withdrew the studies. There was never any explanation as to why they got involved in what could be interpreted as one of the most serious frauds in the history of scientific publishing.

  But it all served a purpose. For Big Pharma, says Kennedy, killing HCQ and, later, Ivermectin (IVM) were top priorities. Ivermectin happens to be a low-profit competitor to a Merck product, molnupiravir, which is essentially a copycat but capable of retailing at a profitable $700 per course.

  Fauci was quite excited by a promising study of Gilead’s remdesivir – which not only is not effective against Covid but is a de facto deadly poison, at $3,000 for each treatment.

  The book suggests that Fauci might have wanted to kill HCQ and IVM because under federal US rules, the FDA’s recognition of both HCQ and IVM would automatically kill remdesivir. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation happens to have a large equity stake in Gilead.

  A key point for Kennedy is that vaccines were Big Pharma’s Holy Grail.

  He details how what could be construed as a Fauci-Gates alliance put “billions of taxpayer and tax-deducted dollars into developing” an mRNA “platform for vaccines that, in theory, would allow them to quickly produce new ‘boosters’ to combat each ‘escape variant.’”

  Vaccines, he writes, “are one of the rare commercial products that multiply profits by failing.… The good news for Pharma was that all of humanity would be permanently dependent on biannual or even triannual booster shots.”

  Any similarities with our current “booster” reality are not mere coincidence.

  The final summary of Pfizer’s clinical trial data will raise countless eyebrows. The whole process lasted a mere six months. This is the document that Pfizer submitted to the FDA to win approval for its vaccine. It beggars belief that Pfizer won the FDA’s emergency approval despite showing that the vaccine might prevent one (italics mine) Covid death in every 22,000 vaccine recipients.

  Peter McCullough: “Because the clinical trial showed that vaccines reduce absolute risk less than 1 percent, those vaccines can’t possibly influence epidemic curves. It’s mathematically impossible.”

  The Gates matrix

  Bill Gates – Teflon-protected by virtually all Western mainstream media – describes the operational philosophy of his foundation as “philantrocapitalism.” It’s more like strategic self-philantropy, as both the foundation’s capital and his net worth have been ballooning in style ($23 billion just during the 2020 lockdowns).

  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – “a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease and inequity around the world” – invests in multinational pharma, food, agriculture, energy, telecom and global tech companies. It exercises considerable de facto control over international health and agricultural agencies as well as mainstream media – as the Columbia Journalism Review showed in August 2020.

  Gates, without a graduate degree, not to mention medical school degree (like author Kennedy, it must be noted, whose training was as a lawyer), dispenses wisdom around the world as a health expert. The foundation holds corporate stocks and bonds in Pfizer, Merck, GSK, Novartis and Sanofi, among other giants, and substantial positions in Gilead, AstraZeneca and Moderna.

  The book delves in minute detail into how Gates controls the WHO (the largest direct donor: $604.2 million in 2018-2019, the latest available numbers). Already in 2011 Gates ordered: “All 183 member states, you must make vaccines a central focus of your health systems.” The next year, the World Health Assembly, which sets the WHO agenda, adopted a Global Vaccine Plan designed by – who else? – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

  The Foundation also controls the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE), the top advisory group to the WHO on vaccines, as well as the crucial GAVI Alliance (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), which is the second-largest donor to the WHO.

  GAVI is a Gates “public-private partnership” that essentially corrals bulk sales of vaccines from Big Pharma to poor nations. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, only three month ago, proclaimed that “GAVI is the new NATO”. GAVI’s global HQ is in Geneva. Switzerland has given Gates full diplomatic immunity.

  Few in East and West know that it was Gates who in 2017 handpicked the WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – who brought no medical degree and a quite dodgy background.

  Dr Vandana Shiva, India’s leading human rights activist (routinely accused of being merely anti-vax), sums up: “Gates has hijacked the WHO and transformed it into an instrument of personal power that he wields for the cynical purpose of increasing pharmaceutical profits. He has single-handedly destroyed the infrastructure of public health globally. He has privatized our health systems and our food systems to serve his own purposes.”

  Gaming pandemics

  The book’s Chapter 12, Germ Games, may be arguably its most explosive, as it focuses on the US bioweapons and biosecurity apparatus, with a special mention to Robert Kadlec, who might claim leadership of the – contagious – logic according to which infectious disease poses a national security threat to the US, thus requiring a militarized response.

  The book argues that Kadlec, closely linked to spy agencies, Big Pharma, the Pentagon and assorted military contractors, is also linked to Fauci investments in “gain of function” experiments capable of engineering pandemic superbugs.

  Fauci strongly denies he’s promoted such experiments. Already in 1998 Kadlec had written an internal strategy paper for the Pentagon – though not for Fauci – promoting the role of pandemic pathogens as stealth weapons leaving no fingerprints.

  Since 2005 DARPA, which invented the internet by building the ARPANET in 1969, has funded biological weapons research. DARPA – call it the Pentagon’s angel investor – also developed the GPS, stealth bombers, weather satellites, pilotless drones, and that prodigy of combat, the M16 rifle.

  It’s important to remember that in 2017 DARPA funneled $6.5 million through Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance to fund “gain of function” work at the Wuhan lab, on top of gain of function experiments at Fort Detrick. EcoHealth Alliance was the organization through which Kadlec, Fauci and DARPA financed these gain of function experiments.

  DARPA also developed the GPS, stealth bombers, weather satellites, pilotless drones, and that prodigy of combat, the M16 rifle. In 2017 DARPA funneled $6.5 million through Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance to fund “gain of function” work at the Wuhan lab, on top of gain of function experiments at Fort Detrick. EcoHealth Alliance was the organization through which Kadlec, Fauci and DARPA financed these gain of function experiments,

  Few people know that DARPA also financed the key tech for the Moderna vaccine, starting way back in 2013.

  RFK Jr dutifully connects the Germ Games progress, starting with Dark Winter in 2001, which emphasized the Pentagon’s drive towards bioweapon vaccines (the code name was coined by Kadlec); the anthrax attack three weeks after 9/11; Atlantic Storm in 2003 and 2005, focused on the response to a terrorist attack unleashing smallpox; Global Mercury 2003; and Lockstep in 2010, which developed a scenario funded by the Rockefeller Foundation where we find this pearl:

  During the pandemic, national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets. Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified. In order to protect themselves from the spread of increasingly global problems – from pandemics and transnational terrorism to environmental crises and rising poverty – leaders around the world took a firmer grip on power.

  RFK Jr paints a picture in which, by mid-2017, the Rockefeller Foundation and US intel agencies had all but crowned Bill Gates as the top financier for the intel/military pandemic simulation business.

  Enter the MARS (Mountain Associated Respiratory Virus) simulation during the G20 in Germany in 2017. MARS was about a novel respiratory virus that spread out of busy markets in a mountainous border of an unnamed nation that looked very much like China.

  It gets curiouser and curiouser when one learns that MARS’s two moderators were very close to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and one of them, David Heymann, sat with the Moderna CEO on the Merieux Foundation USA Board. BioMerieux happens to be the French company that built the Wuhan lab.

  Big Pharma kisses Western intel

  Afterward came SPARS 2017 at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation happen to be major funders of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. SPARS 2017 gamed a coronavirus pandemic running from 2025 to 2028. As RFK Jr. notes, “the exercise turned out to be an eerily precise predictor of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

  By 2018 bioweapons expert Peter Daszak was enthroned as the key connector through whom Fauci, Kadlec, DARPA and USAID – which used to be a CIA cover and now reports to the National Security Council – moved grants to fund gain-of-function research, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Biosafety Lab.

  Crimson Contagion, overseen by Kadlec after eight months of planning, came in August 2019. Fauci was on board the self-described “functional exercise,” representing the NIH, alongside the CDC’s Robert Redfield and several members of the National Security Council. The war game was held in secret, nationwide. The After-Action Crimson Contagion Report only came out via a FOIA request.

  The star of the Gates pandemic show was undoubtedly Event 201 in October 2019, held only 3 weeks before US intel may – or may not – have suspected that Covid-19 was circulating in Wuhan. Event 201 was about a global coronavirus pandemic. RFK Jr. persuasively argues that Event 201 was as close as possible to a “real-time” simulation.

  The book’s Germ Games chapter leads the reader to acknowledge what mainstream media have simply refused to report: how the pervasive involvement of US (and UK) intel has a secretive – yet dominating – presence in the whole response to Covid-19.

  A very good example is the Wellcome Trust – the UK version of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – which is a spin-off of Big Pharma’s GlaxoSmith Kline. This epitomizes the marriage between Big Pharma and Western intel.

  The Wellcome Trust chair, from 2015 to 2020, used to be a former director general of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller. She was also chair of the Imperial College since 2001. The “English Dr. Fauci,” Neil Ferguson, of the infamous, deadly wrong models that led to all lockdowns, was an epidemiologist working for the Wellcome Trust.

  These are only a few of the insights and connections woven through RFK Jr’s book. As a matter of public service, the whole lot should be available for popular scrutiny worldwide. These matters concern the whole planet, especially the Global South.

  Nobel laureate Luc Montaigner has noted how, “tragically for humanity, there are many, many untruths emanating from Fauci and his minions.” Even more tragic is what emanates from his masters.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 23:45

• Russian Forces Are Growing…In Russia! Pentagon Awkwardly Downplays Ukraine Invasion Hype
  Russian Forces Are Growing…In Russia! Pentagon Awkwardly Downplays Ukraine Invasion Hype

  Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday urged Western allies in NATO to act fast to “deter” Russian aggression aimed at the country’s east, claiming that a Russian military assault could come “in the blink of an eye”.

  “What we are seeing is very serious. Russia has deployed a large military force in regions close to Ukraine’s state border,” he told reporters after weeks of widespread Western media assertions that at least 90,000 Russian troops are mustering near the border. “If Russia decides to undertake a military operation, things will happen in literally the blink of an eye,” the foreign minister added.

  Kuleba’s numbers were even higher than common Western press estimates: “Moscow has massed 115,000 troops around Ukraine, on the Crimean peninsula,” he was cited as saying. He also alleged tanks, military vehicles, and electronic warfare systems were also being positioned. 

  

  But the consistent response from the Kremlin has been to point out it’s free to move its forces anywhere it wants within Russia’s own sovereign borders. Ironically enough no officials in the US or anywhere else have actually disputed the reality that there’s not been any attempt to breach Ukraine’s borders.

  Pentagon spokesman John Kirby seemed to acknowledged this in statements the same day. He said the Pentagon is monitoring Russian troop movements… within Russia. Kirby described Russian forces as—

  …”a continuing concern” and pledged US support for Ukrainian forces, though he downplayed expectations of a direct US military intervention.

  “We continue to see movement, we continue to see additions” to their forces near the Ukrainian border, said Kirby.

  “We’re watching it very closely,” he told reporters, adding: “We don’t envision any US military intervention in this conflict.”

  To be sure, if US intelligence actually believed Putin is preparing an “imminent” invasion (as an initial Bloomberg report and some US officials earlier this month claimed), Kirby would now be threatening US military intervention to prevent such an offensive. 

  But instead Kirby is obviously downplaying the “invasion” scenario, and is reduced to admitting the Pentagon is merely “watching” the “movement” of Russian troops within Russia’s own territory. He with a serious tone told the press pool that Russian troops are growing…in Russia.

  

  This is tantamount to if China or Russia called a press conference, only to inform reporters that American troop movements are being monitored within the United States and in the vicinity of US bases on US soil. Moscow days ago slammed what it’s classified as an ongoing ‘disinformation campaign’ coming from Ukraine and Washington, meant to increase the Western pressure on Russia and provide leverage.

  Last week Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova issued a searing response to what’s perhaps in reality a ‘non-crisis’. She said, “The hot heads in the Kiev regime, apparently with a feeling of complete impunity, are in favor of a military solution to this internal Ukrainian crisis.”

  The Kremlin is now turning the accusation right back, asserting it’s Ukraine that’s pushing for fresh confrontation in Donbass, while attempting to hype tensions to the point that Kiev’s Western backers get drawn in. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 23:25

• Pentagon Orders New Probe into Syria Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians
  Pentagon Orders New Probe into Syria Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians

  By Isasbel van Brugen of Epoch Times,

  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered a new investigation into a 2019 airstrike in Syria that led to multiple civilian deaths, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced on Monday.

  

  The renewed probe will be led by U.S. Army Forces commander Gen. Michael Garrett within a 90-day deadline. It aims to review “reports of investigation already conducted” while simultaneously conducting “further inquiry into the facts and circumstances” of the U.S. airstrike that killed dozens of women and children, Kirby said.

  The news follows an investigation published by The New York Times earlier this month, titled “How the U.S. Hid an Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians in Syria.”

  Its report revealed that the March 18, 2019 airstrike on ISIS in Baghouz, Syria, was carried out by a classified American special operations unit, called Task Force 9, which was in charge of ground operations in Syria, and resulted in the deaths of as many as 70 civilians.

  There were mostly women and children in the region hit by the strike, the Times reported, noting that the Baghuz strike was one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the war against the Islamic State, but it has never been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. military.

  The investigation also alleged that top officers and civilian officials attempted to downplay these figures.

  The probe will cover “civilian casualties that resulted from the incident, compliance with the law of war” and “whether accountability measures would be appropriate,” Kirby said.

  Garrett will also be asked to recreate the timeline of the original probe into the incident after it was “stalled and stripped of any mention of the strike,” according to the Times.

  It comes after Austin earlier this month said that the U.S. military was “committed” to getting right its transparency about strikes and how they are conducted.

  “The American people deserve to know that we take this issue very seriously. And that we are committed to protecting civilians and getting this right both in terms of how we execute missions on their behalf and how we talk about them afterwards,” Austin said at a press briefing on Nov. 17. “And I recognize that and I’m committed to doing this in full partnership with our military leaders.”

  Kirby said on Monday that Austin decided to order a new probe after being briefed on the matter by Central Command head Gen. Kenneth McKenzie earlier this month.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 23:05

• US May Impose New Omicron-Inspired Travel Restrictions As More Cases Confirmed In Canada
  US May Impose New Omicron-Inspired Travel Restrictions As More Cases Confirmed In Canada

  Fewer than 250 confirmed cases of the omicron variant have been recorded worldwide (although epidemiologists fear the number of cases caused by the variant could be much higher). But that isn’t stopping the CDC, led by Rochelle Walensky – the same bureaucrat who admitted two months ago that COVID jabs “can’t prevent transmission” of the virus – from pushing for tighter travel restrictions in an effort to “slow” the new variant’s entry into the US.

  President Joe Biden signaled that he would be taking the new variant seriously during a press conference yesterday where he delegated to Dr. Anthony Fauci multiple times. Dr. Fauci has seized the opportunity to bombard Americans with FUD related to the new strain.

  Cases of the variant have been confirmed in Canada, and many believe it’s only a matter of time before a case is confirmed in the US (even if the US were to close its borders to non-citizens again tomorrow).

  CDC Dir. Walensky: “We don’t know everything we need to know yet about the omicron variant, but we know that vaccination is a safe and effective way to protect yourself from severe illness and complications from all known SARS-CoV-2 variants to date.” https://t.co/SNpGmVWFmu pic.twitter.com/TTHQVLsNHH

  — ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) November 30, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  But instead of taking such drastic action, the CDC is looking at a handful of less intensive measures.

  These include narrowing the testing window for travelers heading into the US, while adding quarantine requirements in certain cases, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday on a call with reporters. It’s also expanding surveillance programs at four major airports to test for the omicron variant, and just regular old COVID, from certain international arrivals.

  In the meantime, Canada, which has just confirmed another case of the new variant, is reportedly adding Nigeria, Malawi and Egypt to the list of African countries where travelers are banned due to concerns about the new variant, the Toronto Star. The first cases of omicron were reported in travelers from Nigeria.

  Walensky added that local health officials across the US are actively looking for the omicron variant. “Right now, there is no evidence of omicron in the United States…the delta variant remains the predominant circulating strain” she added.

  She also warned that the CDC is “strengthening” its recommendation that all adults over 18 get their booster shots.

  “Everyone ages 18 and older should get a booster shot either when they are 6 months after their initial Pfizer or Moderna series or 2 months after their initial J&J vaccine,” she said.

  Assuming the US does impose new travel restrictions, how much longer until Americans who don’t have their boosters are treated as de facto unvaccinated? While those who haven’t had any of their shots are treated like lepers.

  

  Source: NYT

  A handful of countries – Israel, Morocco, Japan and South Korea – have closed off foreign travel while European nations shut their borders specifically to travelers from southern Africa. And a US governor has already declared a state of emergency without a single omicron case being confirmed. That all seems to contradict President Biden’s insistence that the new variant is a “cause for concern, not panic”.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 22:45

• Australia Will Not Return To Lockdown In Wake Of Omicron Variant: PM
  Australia Will Not Return To Lockdown In Wake Of Omicron Variant: PM

  Authored by Brendan Taylor via Insider Paper (emphasis ours),

  Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stated that the country will not be placed back into lockdown in response to the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

  

  Morrison met with state and territory leaders on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the national response to the new variant of concern.

  Prior to the meeting, Morrison stated that the federal, state, and territory governments would be cautious about Omicron, but ruled out a return to strict stay-at-home restrictions, according to the Xinhua news agency.

  He said he would use the national cabinet meeting to implore state and territory leaders to keep domestic borders open in the run-up to Christmas.

  “We’re not going back to lockdowns. None of us want that,” he told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.

  “What we did last night was protecting against that by having a sensible pause and to keep proceeding with where we are now and to further assess that information so we can move forward with confidence.”

  Earlier on Tuesday, Health Minister Greg Hunt said that the federal government’s “overwhelming view” is that the Omicron variant is “manageable.”

  Six cases of the new variant had been confirmed in Australia as of Tuesday.

  Australia reported more than 1,100 new Covid-19 cases and nine deaths on Tuesday morning, as the country battles the third wave of infections.

  The majority of new cases were reported in Victoria, the country’s second-most populous state with Melbourne as its capital city, which reported 918 cases and six deaths.

  According to the Health Department, as of Monday, 92.4 percent of Australians aged 16 and up had received one vaccine dose and 87% had received their second dose.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 22:25

• Goldman Partners With Amazon To Launch New Cloud Computing Platform
  Goldman Partners With Amazon To Launch New Cloud Computing Platform

  Goldman Sachs and Amazon are launching their most ambitious collaboration yet:  a new cloud computing service geared toward Wall Street firms to help them with high-frequency trading and other practices.

  And all these firms need to do is agree to entrust their entire back-end IT setup to the Vampire Squid to access what Amazon is touting as one of the fastest and most useful back-end systems available to Wall Street firms looking to transition on to the cloud.

  

  The new product – the result of a two-year collaboration with Amazon – will allow buy-side and sell-side firms to access all of Goldman’s tools for quickly analyzing market data while enabling clients to set up high-speed trading strategies. Instead of simply relying on Goldman for prime brokerage services, hedge funds could soon outsource most of their IT setup to Wall Street’s most powerful investment bank, with a critical assist from Amazon.

  CNBC said the collaboration is in line with Goldman’s attempt to use technology to better serve clients of the firm’s markets division.

  “Clients of the firm will get access to our decades of experience and data aggregation that should enable them to enhance their business decisions, both from a speed and efficiency perspective,” Solomon told CNBC last week in a phone interview. “We think that adds to our position as a leader in the marketplace.”

  The new service, called GS Financial Cloud for Data with Amazon Web Services, will purportedly allow buy side firms to save time by allowing developers to focus on what matters – making sure trades are filed and filled as quickly as possible, rather than wasting time wrangling data sets and leaning on a patchwork of legacy software to analyze said data. It will also “lower the barriers to entry” for firms to use advanced quantitative trading techniques, Goldman said.  

  To be sure, using Goldman’s IT platform will also help the Vampire Squid monitor the activities of clients, granting Goldman the transparency to avoid any overlevered time bombs like Archegos.

  The industry is struggling to keep up with the rising technological demands of the latest investment techniques, according to Goldman co-chief CIO Marco Argenti.

  Argenti added that “if this existed, we would have used it…but we had to build it for ourselves. All you need to do is assemble the interface and integrate it with your application and then everything else is kind of taken care of for you.”

  Amazon and Goldman unveiled the new product at the AWS: Invent Conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday. But this isn’t the start of the relationship between Goldman and Amazon. The two company’s have been collaborating for more than a decade. Goldman leaned on Amazon to help build the back end of Goldman’s “Marcus” consumer finance business, along with its Apple Card, which was released a few years after Marcus.

  Adam Selipsky, who rejoined Amazon as head of AWS earlier this year, said the idea for a collaboration with Goldman arose from conversations with other financial services customers.

  “We have a lot of customers who ask us to help them do what Amazon did with AWS,” Selipsky said in a phone interview. “When we started talking about Goldman’s capabilities around data and around analytics in the financial services realm, the ideas just sprang up pretty rapidly about collaborating together.”

  Goldman CEO David Solomon said the new offering will “enhance the experience” of Goldman’s institutional clients and that “the way we get paid for that is we get more of their wallet share because the overall experience and services we provide gives us more mindshare, more opportunities to trade with them, to finance them and do things like that,” Solomon said.

  It’s only the latest major cloud deal involving a Wall Street player as firms with complicated trading operations look to the cloud to solve their problems.

  Hey look at that. Another cloud deal.

  CME – Google
  Nasdaq – Amazon
  Goldman – Amazon https://t.co/FAUlOKQM6D

  — Patrick Rooney (@patrickrooney) November 30, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Put another way: once Goldman is running the buy side’s back end, firms will effectively be forced to trade with Goldman (not to mention the treasure drove of data and information that Goldman might glean from the arrangement). Nothing’s free on Wall Street.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 22:05

• Judge Blocks Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate For Federal Contractors
  Judge Blocks Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate For Federal Contractors

  By Zachary Stieber of Epoch Times

  A judge on Tuesday blocked President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors, finding that Biden likely lacks the authority to force them to get vaccinated.

  “This is not a case about whether vaccines are effective. They are. Nor is this a case about whether the government, at some level, and in some circumstances, can require citizens to obtain vaccines. It can,” U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, a George W. Bush nominee, wrote in the 29-page order.

  “The question presented here is narrow. Can the president use congressionally delegated authority to manage the federal procurement of goods and services to impose vaccines on the employees of federal contractors and subcontractors? In all likelihood, the answer to that question is no,” he said.

  The judge granted a request for a preliminary injunction by the attorneys general of Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.

  

  The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

  “This is not about vaccines, it’s about the mandates,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, said in a statement.

  “The judge’s opinion clearly states that and it has been our position all along that the president cannot impose these mandates on the people.”

  Biden signed an executive order on Sept. 9 that led several weeks later to the White House requiring contractors force all their workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine unless the worker is entitled to an exception.

  Contractors who did not comply with the order, originally set with a Dec. 8 deadline, were poised to lose the government’s business.

  The states charged that the vaccine mandate was both illegal and unconstitutional, in part because it was imposed with little regard to “important aspects surrounding the mandate, including but not limited to economic impacts, cost to States, cost to citizens, labor-force and supply-chain disruptions, the current risks of COVID-19, and basic distinctions among workers such as those with natural immunity to COVID-19 and those who work remotely or with limited in-person contacts, among other aspects.”

  The government disagreed, arguing that the president does have authority to regulate contractors under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act because. Courts have ruled the president can pursue “efficient and economic” procurement, which he was in the order, lawyers asserted.

  Van Tatenhove sided with the states.

  Defendants, he said, failed to point to a single instance when the services act was used “to promulgate such a wide and sweeping public health regulation as mandatory vaccination for all federal contractors and subcontractors.” He also expressed concern that the mandate “intrudes on an area that is traditionally reserved to the States,” citing the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.

  A preliminary injunction means the mandate is blocked for now in the three states, with the possibility of becoming a permanent block or eventually being allowed to take effect.

  A preliminary injunction has already been entered against the Biden administration’s health care worker vaccine mandate and a similar mandate for private businesses.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 21:45

• Lumber Prices Soar As British Columbia Floods Curb Shipments
  Lumber Prices Soar As British Columbia Floods Curb Shipments

  Lumber prices surged to June highs as Canada’s largest forestry company curbed shipments due to supply chain disruptions after severe flooding in British Columbia.

  West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. said weekly lumber shipments from Canada’s westernmost province fell approximately 25%-30% in the second half of November following floods. Pulp shipments to the port of Vancouver were down 20%. 

  “While West Fraser is utilizing alternative transportation routes and methods to the extent they are available to continue servicing customers, the magnitude and duration of the impact from current weather events remains uncertain.

  Therefore, West Fraser has reduced operating schedules at multiple western Canadian locations and will continue to make such adjustments as necessary in order to manage inventory levels, raw material supplies and our integrated fibre supply chain.

  At the current time, it is not possible to estimate when full transportation services will resume or when the backlogs resulting from the interruptions will be cleared,” the company said in a statement. 

  Uncertainty about lumber supply spooked lumber futures trading in Chicago on Tuesday, up nearly 4% to $824.50 per 1,000 board feet, the highest price since late June. Prices have jumped 30% in the last two weeks. 

  

  Around Nov. 14, an atmospheric river dumped torrential rains across southern parts of British Columbia. A series of floods severely damaged infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and train tracks. Moving lumber from sawmills to ports generally occurs on trucks and or trains. With infrastructure damaged, as shown below, it appears West Fraser has been partially choked off in accessing ports. 

  

  Greg Kuta, the founder of Westline Capital Strategies Inc., which specializes in lumber trading, told Bloomberg that “there’s no point in producing more than you can ship right now, especially knowing lumber is at the bottom of the pecking order with rail car allocation.”

  There’s no timetable on when West Fraser’s supply chain will go back to normal. Fixing bridges and roads is not an overnight process. It could take weeks, if not months, to resolve the logistical nightmare that some blame on climate change, and others point to La Nina. As for now, a bullish thesis could be developing for lumber as supply woes mount. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 21:25

• The Perfect Con Job
  The Perfect Con Job

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via DailyReckoning.com,

  One of the most famous examples of smart people being sucked into a bubble and losing a packet as a result is Isaac Newton’s forays in and out of the 1720 South Sea Bubble that is estimated to have sucked in 80–90% of the entire pool of investors in England.

  Some have claimed that Newton did not buy early in 1711, sell in April 1720 for a nice profit and then sink the majority of his substantial fortune in the bubble as it peaked in summer, then suffering heavy losses as the bubble popped in September, but evidence supports this chain of events.

  Newton “bought the dip” on the way up and then added to his position as the mania rolled over, making his final fatal purchase as a “buy the dip” just before the “last chance to exit” spike — which is precisely the point the current bubble has finally reached, when everyone is all in and “buying the dip” to increase the profits that everyone agrees are essentially guaranteed because the Fed.

  Not Even a Genius Can See a Bubble

  Isaac Newton was a very smart man. Newton was not just smart and wealthy, but he was financially sophisticated and a very successful investor who favored financial instruments such as bonds over land.

  He was the ultimate experienced, savvy investor who would not be bamboozled by specious math.

  The problem is, alas, smart people are still humans, and humans run with the herd when the herd is minting money.

  The Herd Is in for a Rude Awakening

  Absurdly farfetched claims are gussied up with “mathiness” and narratives that are powerfully simplistic, with just enough common-sense credibility to enliven the excessive greed that lies dormant but ready in every human heart.

  Despite Newton’s tremendous intelligence and experience, he fell victim to the bubble along with the vast herd of credulous greedy punters.

  Newton died a wealthy man in 1727, so his bubble misadventure did not ruin him, though it did lop a huge chunk off his net worth.

  Many in the herd, then and now, won’t be as fortunate. In fact, right now they’re being set up for a massive fall. And the financially intelligent could make fortunes as a result.

  Let me explain…

  An Opportunity to Scoop up Mega-Millions

  An extraordinary opportunity to scoop up mega-millions in profits has arisen, and grabbing all this free money makes perfect financial sense. Now the question is: Will those who have the means to grab the dough have the guts to do so?

  Here’s the opportunity:

  Retail punters (those who attempt to make fast profits from an investment regardless of its underlying fundamentals) have gone wild for call options, churning $2.6 trillion in mostly short-term calls — bets on gains now, not later.

  This expansion of retail options exposure is unprecedented not just in its volume but in its concentration in short-term bets (options that expire in a few days) and in mega-cap tech companies that are commanding rich premiums for options.

  The options market is like every other market only more so.

  The price of an option — a bet that a stock, ETF or index will go up or down before the option expires — is sensitive to the volatility of the underlying equity, the demand of other punters for options and the premium being demanded for time:

  The further out the expiration date, the higher the cost of the option.

  Anyone with 100 shares of the underlying equity can write/originate an option. Each option controls 100 shares, so a call option that is listed at $1 costs the buyer of the call $100.

  This is very sweet leverage if the market goes your way. You get all the gains of the 100 shares for a cost considerably less than buying the 100 shares outright. No wonder retail punters are going crazy for this cheap leverage to maximize gains in “can’t lose” trades.

  There’s a Catch

  But options have one funny trait: They can expire worthless and the punter loses the entire bet.

  Each option has an expiration date and a strike price — the price of the underlying equity that’s the pivot point for the bet.

  Calls gain value if the equity’s price moves above the strike price and puts gain value if the equity’s price falls below the strike price.

  The entity that sold the option gets to keep the money if it expires without any value. Here’s an example:

  Let’s say you have 100 shares of Engulf & Devour and you sell me a call for $500 at a strike price of $100. If Engulf & Devour closes below $100 at expiration, you keep the $500 as pure profit and I lose the entire bet.

  Now, it would be extraordinarily profitable to sell a huge number of calls — bets on a move higher — and then pull the rug out by crashing the market just as all those options expire. It would be criminally foolish not to crash the market and scoop up all that free money.

  Here’s what makes the opportunity so extraordinary…

  All Bulls, No Bears

  The options universe is extremely lopsided. Bearish bets have dried up as the market has melted higher month after month; short bets are at record lows and the put-call ratio reflects the same capitulation of bears and bulls’ supreme confidence in near-term gains.

  This means a crash will cost very little in terms of puts gaining value because there are so few puts out there to reap enormous gains as the vast majority of call options will expire worthless, leaving those who wrote the calls immensely wealthier.

  In previous eras with lower retail option volume and a less lopsided options market, it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to flash-crash the market to scoop up retail calls. But a trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

  Buyers of “can’t lose” calls may be unaware that the tail can wag the dog. Mega-cap tech companies appear invulnerable to declines, but they are now the 800-pound gorillas in all the indexes (Dow 30, S&P 500, Nasdaq) and a boatload of ETFs.

  So triggering a mass sell-off in an index play such as SPY will trigger a sell-off in all the components of that index, including the invulnerable mega-cap tech names.

  Mass Exodus

  The opportunity here is amplified by the dominance of computer trading algorithms. Once a crash begins, the algos will trend-follow and liquidate exposure to lower risk. This sets up a self-reinforcing chain of selling as every drop triggers more sell programs.

  Volumes are so low that it won’t take that big of a leveraged sell order to start the rug-pull.

  Add up the extraordinary size of retail options bets, the lopsided bullish bias in calls and the short duration of the calls and you have an unprecedented opportunity to scoop mega-millions of dollars by doing a rug-pull of the market via selling leveraged index instruments.

  Retail call buyers are basically begging the big players to take their money via a flash crash, and the players would be insanely incompetent not to take the money lying on the table.

  The Perfect Con

  It has all the moving parts of a perfect con:

  Convince the retail punters that they can’t lose by buying calls, jack up the premium they’re paying to own that beautiful leverage for a few days or weeks, lead them on with little rallies, “proving” they can’t lose and encouraging them to buy more high-priced calls, crush volatility to show the futility of buying puts and persuade the punters they have no need for any hedge, as the market can only loft higher because the Fed, etc.

  Then bang, pull the rug out and crash the market limit down for a few days.

  

  It’s a gorgeous setup, literally picture-perfect. It makes perfect financial sense to crash the market and no sense to reward the retail options marks by pushing it higher.

  Let’s see who gets to be the Road Runner and who ends up as Wile E. Coyote.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 21:05

• NY Man Robs Woman At Knifepoint, Released Without Bail And Promptly Finds Another Female Victim
  NY Man Robs Woman At Knifepoint, Released Without Bail And Promptly Finds Another Female Victim

  A man in New York City was arrested for allegedly robbing a woman at knifepoint in a Nov. 22 subway attack. Hours later he was released on  bail by Judge James Clynes, a Democrat.

  

  After a good night’s sleep in his own bed, 63-year-old Augustin Garcia stole an iPhone from another woman on the subway the next morning, according to Fox News.

  He now faces charges of petty larceny, grand larceny, robbery, menacing, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal trespassing.

  He allegedly stole a woman’s purse on the afternoon of Nov. 22 and ran onto a train, then “displayed a knife and told her to stay back” when she pursued him, according to a criminal complaint. 

  After he was arrested, prosecutors requested a $15,000 cash bail or a $45,000 bond, but Judge James Clynes let him go on supervised release just after midnight on Nov. 23, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office told Fox News. 

  Garcia was arrested again about seven hours later for allegedly stealing from the second victim and prosecutors upped the request to a $20,000 cash bail or a $60,000 bond, but Judge Valentina Morales ordered him to undergo a mental health evaluation. 

  “My brother is a sick person,” said Jose Garcia, Augustin’s brother, in a comment to the NY Post, adding that Augustin used to be “sharp as a weasel” when he was working as a supervisor at at welding company. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia around 35 years ago.

  “When he goes to the hospital and is committed there, sometimes for a month or two, he sometimes doesn’t get the treatment completely, and they release him. And once they release him, the problem comes back again,” Garcia continued.

  Augustin was arrested the day before the first robbery for allegedly stealing a 12-pack of beer from a Bronx bodega – and reportedly bragged to the cops that he knew he’d be released.

  “I know I’m getting out, he said, adding “I have no record.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 20:45

• US Officials Confirm Israel Behind Cyberattack On Iranian Gas Stations
  US Officials Confirm Israel Behind Cyberattack On Iranian Gas Stations

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Citing unnamed US military officials, The New York Times reported Saturday that Israel was responsible for a recent cyberattack against civilian infrastructure in Iran that targeted gas stations.

  The report said Israel was behind an October 26th hack of Iran’s fuel distribution system that caused gas pumps to stop working across the country. Gas pumps displayed a digital message telling customers to blame the problem on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

  

  Iran provides a certain amount of subsidized fuel to each citizen for a discounted price, and the report said it took the Oil Ministry two weeks to get the system back up and running. The idea was to get Iranians angry at the government and to create unrest, but it never materialized.

  It’s unclear if the cyberattack was as disruptive as the Times report said, as Israel is known for using leaks to the media to exaggerate the power it has inside Iran. The report also cited unnamed Israeli officials who claimed Iranians hacked an Israeli dating site and a medical facility in response. The officials said the hackers posted the personal details of millions of Israelis to social media.

  Israel is often suspected of carrying out cyberattacks against Iran on top of its frequent attacks against Iran’s civilian nuclear program. But the US usually keeps quiet on these operations.

  The acknowledgment by US officials came just before the US and Iran resumed negotiations to revive the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, and could have been an attempt to increase the pressure ahead of the talks.

  Israel & Iran up cyberattacks against each other. A recent cyberattack on Iran’s fuel distribution system paralyzed 4,300 gas stations & took 12 days restored. Days later a cyberattacks in Israel hit a medical facility & popular LGBTQ dating site. https://t.co/u6APXgOfRH

  — Kylie Atwood (@kylieatwood) November 28, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  When the Biden administration started its first round of talks with Iran back in April, Israel carried out a covert attack against Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. By not condemning the attack, the US gave it a tacit endorsement. Quietly backing Israel’s operations against Iran appears to be a negotiations tactic for the Biden administration.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 20:25

• Leaked Video Shows Moment F-35 Jet Rolled Off UK Carrier In Mediterranean 
  Leaked Video Shows Moment F-35 Jet Rolled Off UK Carrier In Mediterranean 

  New video has emerged, possibly the result of a military leak, of a British fighter jet crash that occurred less than two weeks ago off the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. 

  A Nov.17 press release put out by the UK Defence Ministry had stated, “A British F35 pilot from HMS Queen Elizabeth ejected during routine flying operations in the Mediterranean this morning.” The pilot was described as in safe condition and is back on the ship after the major incident, but further details were scant. But new video has been featured by Business Insider after apparently leaked footage from aboard the carrier was posted to social media. A UK military analyst posted the new footage:

  Well thank God he is still with us! That’s all I can say. pic.twitter.com/YtL6f0BFAm

  — Seb H (@sebh1981) November 29, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The Royal Navy video looks to be security footage from the crash. It was initially unknown whether the advanced fighter jet had crashed while in flight, or if it had rolled off the carrier, with the footage now confirming the latter scenario. 

  The private analyst who posted the footage online said it was sourced to a Royal Navy WhatsApp group, with Business Insider describing the scene as follows: 

  The video shows the plane losing speed as it climbs the runway, so much so that it immediately drops instead of taking off. The pilot’s parachute is visible as he ejects, and smoke billows around the ramp and sea.

  The BBC’s report added that the MoD confirmed that the pilot survived and was rescued. The MoD also told the BBC that an investigation was still underway as crews are still trying to recover parts of the high-technology, sensitive parts of the plane.

  The UK military has since said it was “aware” of the now public video but didn’t give comment. It simply stated that “It is too soon to comment on the potential causes of this incident.”

  One former Royal Navy officer was cited in British media as explaining, “Given how close the aircraft ditched to the bow, and the speed of the ship on launch, the likelihood of it hitting the bow of the ship (under the waterline) would be quite high.” 

  The short clip shows the jet taking off at a dangerously slow speed, and then appearing to power down just as it reached the end of the runway, which caused it to plunge into the sea below. The pilot ejected at the moment the F-35’s nose began going overboard. The military hasn’t confirmed if there was damage to the carrier due to the accident.

  

  The crashed jet was part of a contingent of nearly a dozen F-35s aboard. The F-35 that went down was an estimated 135 million dollars, and had cutting-edge stealth technology and radar. Depending on what the investigation returns, the mishap could prove hugely embarrassing, especially if it wasn’t pilot error but something wrong with the plane’s advanced systems.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 20:05

• Retailers Open Pop-Up Container Yards To Bypass Savannah Port Jams
  Retailers Open Pop-Up Container Yards To Bypass Savannah Port Jams

  By Eric Kulisch of American Shipper,

  Overflow lots set up by large retailers this month as temporary staging areas for imported containers have helped bring down congestion levels at the Port of Savannah, and Georgia officials expect further efficiency gains with this week’s opening of two more port-sponsored pop-up sites.

  

  The Georgia Ports Authority, in partnership with the Norfolk Southern, will start accepting loaded containers on Monday at the freight railroad’s nearby Dillon Yard and later this week will begin routing shipping units to a general aviation airport in Statesboro, located about 60 miles west of Savannah, Chief Operating Officer Ed McCarthy told FreightWaves.

  Moving containers to off-port properties is part of the recently announced South Atlantic Supply Chain Relief Program designed to reclaim space at the Garden City Terminal, where container crowding is making it difficult for vessels to unload and for stacking equipment and trucks to maneuver. In October, Savannah handled an all-time record of 504,350 twenty-foot equivalent units for a single month, an increase of 8.7% over October 2020. The volume surpassed the GPA’s previous record of 498,000 TEUs set in March.

  Port officials began testing the Dillon Yard and Statesboro locations last week after renting top loaders for stacking and truck transfers, installing computer lines in order to track containers entering the gate with radio frequency identification, and laying extra pavement at the rail facility, McCarthy said. 

  Four or five more pop-up container facilities are scheduled to open around Georgia by mid-December and the port authority is talking with freight railroad CSX about an auxiliary storage site in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the COO said in an interview. 

  The sites are mini-versions of inland ports where containers are brought to strategically located sites by intermodal rail, shortening the distance trucks have to travel to collect imports or drop off exports and reducing traffic in and around busy seaports. The concept essentially brings the seaport closer to manufacturing, agriculture and population centers. 

  The GPA currently operates a large inland intermodal rail terminal in Murray County, Georgia, as well as an inland dry bulk facility. Construction on a second inland rail link for containerized cargo in northeast Georgia is scheduled to begin in April and be completed by mid- to late 2024, spokesman Robert Morris said. South Carolina also operates two inland ports, Virginia has one in the northwestern part of the state and the Port of Long Beach in California recently launched an effort to quickly flow cargo to Utah for distribution by converting truck traffic to rail.

  Several users of the Port of Savannah this month have opened pop-up yards of their own where they can directly flow import containers to avoid waiting for longshoremen to sort through shipping units for their cargo and then retrieve them when space opens at one of their distribution centers. Each of the private spillover yards can accommodate 2,000 to 3,000 containers. 

  “We’re starting to see some of our customer base do their own pop-ups. They’re contracting with some folks who have capabilities in the Savannah region and … taking their long-term destiny in their own hands,” McCarthy said in an interview.

  The Rocky Mount intermodal facility being discussed with CSX will probably be used as an alternative storage location for empty containers. It could be running by early December, the COO said. Whether containers are diverted from other locations or whether empties are loaded up in Savannah and sent there remains to be determined. 

  The Biden administration, which is focused on alleviating a nationwide supply chain crisis that is creating product shortages and contributing to inflation, helped fund the GPA’s emergency storage yards by reallocating $8 million in federal funds. Additional flexibility recently granted by the Department of Transportation allows port authorities to redirect cost savings from previous projects funded by port infrastructure grants toward mitigating truck, rail and terminal delays that are preventing the swift evacuation of containers from ports.

  White House port envoy John Porcari, the liaison between industry and the White House Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, said the government is looking to create more inland ports. 

  “We’re encouraging other ports to do the same [thing as Savannah.] I think you’ll see a generation of projects in the short term around the country that will help maximize the existing on-dock capacity through interior pop-up sites,” Porcari said on Bloomberg’s “Odd Lots” podcast last week. 

  “The fundamental issue is that the docks themselves are such valuable pieces of real estate that you don’t want the containers dwelling there a second longer than you have to. You want to get them to the interior or back on ships to their target markets overseas,” he said.

  Better Fluidity

  Improvements in rail handling, a dip in import volumes in line with seasonal patterns and the customer pop-up yards have combined to improve cargo flow and reduce the number of ships waiting for a berth at the Port of Savannah, McCarthy said. 

  

  The port authority released an operations update last week showing the average dwell time for a container moving by rail after vessel unloading is two days, and that the average resting time within the terminal for import and export containers is about eight days, down from 11 and 10 days, respectively. The backlog of empty containers remains a problem, with boxes lingering an average of 17.8 days.

  The improved performance is helping personnel work vessels faster and reduce Savannah’s cargo backlog. The number of ships at anchor in the Atlantic Ocean declined to 15 as of Monday morning from 22 two weeks ago, Morris said. There were 24 container vessels at anchor in mid-October. Total containers on the terminal also declined 13% and are down 16% from the peak of 85,000, according to the update.

  McCarthy said there are about 225,000 TEUs currently on the water, a 10% to 12% reduction from early November that indicates “we are over the hump of the peak season.”

  Last week, ocean carrier CMA CGM said its Liberty Bridge service from northern Europe to the U.S. East Coast would temporarily skip Savannah due to the congestion. According to the revised schedule, seven stops between late December and early February will be omitted. Shippers can send Savannah cargo to the Port of Charleston, South Carolina, until then, it said.

  The GPA also noted that providers have increased the supply of chassis, the wheeled frames on which containers rest when pulled by truck, and are increasingly able to repair more chassis to help meet demand for cargo deliveries.

  

  The Port of Savannah increased its near-dock rail capacity by 30% with the commissioning two weeks ago of a second set of nine tracks at the Mason Mega Rail Terminal. The port moved 550,000 containers by rail last year and now has more than 2 million TEUs of capacity with an eye toward future growth. The ability to discharge cargo from a vessel and ship it out by train in less than two days is best in class for the U.S., McCarthy noted.

  A huge new container yard will come online in phases starting in December and culminate with about 820,000 TEUs of additional capacity by March. The project includes rubber-tired gantry cranes for sorting, stacking and transferring containers.

  Construction of another berth is underway and scheduled to be complete in 2023.

  Meanwhile, the federal dredging project to deepen the Savannah River to 47 feet (54 feet at high tide) is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022. It has already allowed vessels with deeper drafts to enter the port, McCarthy said. The deepening translates to about 200 extra loaded containers per foot and a total of 1,000 per vessel when the project is finished.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 19:45

• Michael Flynn Reportedly Calls QAnon A 'CIA Disinformation Campaign'
  Michael Flynn Reportedly Calls QAnon A ‘CIA Disinformation Campaign’

  Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn reportedly believes that ‘QAnon’ is actually a ‘disinformation campaign created by the CIA,’ despite having heavily endorsed the movement.

  

  In a private telephone conversation with pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood which has not been independently verified, Flynn – according to Wood, dismissed QAnon as ‘total nonsense,’ the Daily Mail reports.

  Wood posted the conversation to his Telegram channel on Saturday. Exactly when the call took place is unclear, however it referenced a Hal Turner article published Nov. 2.

  “I think it’s a disinformation campaign. I think it’s a disinformation campaign that the CIA created. That’s what I believe,” the man said to be Flynn said on the recording. “Now, I don’t know that for a fact, but that’s what I think it is.”

  Later in the call, the same man can be heard stating how the conspiracy movement was ‘total nonsense’ calling it a ‘disinformation campaign created by the left’. 

  ‘I think it’s a disinformation campaign. There’s actually a very interesting article today out that was sent to me — I’ll send it to you — about how the QAnon movement has failed and all that. But I find it total nonsense, and I think it’s a disinformation campaign created by the left,’ he said. –Daily Mail

  Listen:

  vIdEo pRoDuCtIoN iS mY pAsSiOn pic.twitter.com/7ErBpus3kn

  — Jan Bobrowicz (@janbobrowicz) November 28, 2021

  While it’s possible the man heard in the recording is not Flynn, the retired Army General hasn’t denied it when reached for comment by other outlets.

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 19:25

• Bitcoin Version Of "Giving Tuesday" Returns With 10 Times As Many Nonprofits
  Bitcoin Version Of “Giving Tuesday” Returns With 10 Times As Many Nonprofits

  Authored by ‘NAMCIOS’ via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  Crypto Giving Tuesday returns this year to connect bitcoin donors with over 1,000 nonprofits from various sectors.

  

  Philanthropy platform The Giving Block is launching the Crypto Giving Tuesday initiative on Tuesday, November 30, according to a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine. The campaign will take place on the same day as the world’s most prominent day of global generosity, Giving Tuesday, to connect bitcoin donors with nonprofits across various sectors.

  The Giving Block facilitates nonprofit organizations’ experience in receiving donations in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Philanthropic investors can browse and contribute to the cause they identify more with by sending direct bitcoin donations rather than converting the desired amount to fiat currency and donating that instead. Donors can avoid capital gains taxes from the sale of cryptocurrency and enable a bigger donation to reach the nonprofit, a win-win for both parties.

  “People can avoid giving proceeds to the IRS by donating that money directly…to charity,” the statement said.

  “For example, if an investor chooses to donate based on assets they have recouped, takes $10,000 in Bitcoin and cashes out to donate, they will get the write-off, but pay capital gains tax on the $10K (as much as 20%). If the same investor donates the $10K in Bitcoin directly to a nonprofit, they still get the write-off, but there’s zero tax to be paid.”

  There are currently over 700 nonprofit organizations on The Giving Block’s platform, and the company expects over 1,000 organizations to participate in the campaign this year, almost ten times more than in 2020.

  Crypto Giving Tuesday can also serve as an inexpensive pilot program for nonprofits interested in accepting bitcoin donations. If they have a successful campaign, they can present their results to their leadership to push the Bitcoin agenda more easily. And for those worried about their precious bitcoin stack, they can enforce a virtuous cycle while purchasing back the same amount of BTC instantly after donating, which is also tax efficient.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 19:05

• FDA Advisory Committee Narrowly Votes To Approve Merck's COVID 'Miracle Drug'
  FDA Advisory Committee Narrowly Votes To Approve Merck’s COVID ‘Miracle Drug’

  During a week that has seen a new COVID variant emerge and suddenly throw the efficacy of American vaccines and remedies into question, the FDA’s outside advisors have only narrowly approved of Merck’s molnupiravir, opening the door for the agency to approve the drug for use among high-risk patients only.

  The Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee, as the panel is known, voted 13 to 10 in support of the FDA approving the drug, which was first introduced to the public a couple of months ago with “blockbuster” experimental results from a very limited trial that, according to some critics, glossed over safety risks presented by the drug.

  

  By granting its blessing to the drug, the committee will allow Merck to start selling it widely in the US by the end of the year.

  As far as omicron is concerned, Merck plans to study whether molnupiravir is effective against the new variant panic of the moment. The company is working to collect samples of the new strain to do so. Nick Kartsonis, who oversees Merck’s vaccine clinical research, confirmed as much to the panel.

  “We expect, based on what we know about the Omicron variant, that molnupiravir would be effective against this particular variant,” he said.

  Evaluating molnupiravir against omicron, Kartsonis said, will take longer than assessing COVID-19 antibody drugs because Merck needs to collect a broader set of data covering the entire genome of the virus, rather than select pieces.

  As we have explained, molnupiravir targets the machinery the virus uses to replicate, rather than the spike protein, the structure that helps the virus infiltrate cells. Omicron has mutations to the spike protein, which researchers say could help it evade protections provided by vaccines and drugs trained to target the virus’s spike protein.

  Just last week, the company said that a final analysis had found the drug to be about 30% effective at reducing the risk of hospitalization and death in high-risk people, lower than the 50% efficacy first announced in October after a preliminary look at the data.

  While the FDA isn’t obligated to follow the ADAC’s recommendation, it typically does.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 18:45

• CNN Suspends Chris Cuomo 'Indefinitely'
  CNN Suspends Chris Cuomo ‘Indefinitely’

  Update (1835ET): CNN has suspended Chris Cuomo indefinitely following the release of new documents this week that reveal he leveraged media sources to help dig up dirt on his brother’s accusers.

  

  “The New York Attorney General’s office released transcripts and exhibits Monday that shed new light on Chris Cuomo’s involvements in his brother’s defense. The documents, which we were not privy to before their public release, raise serious questions,” the network said in a Tuesday statement. “When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother’s staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly. But we also appreciated the unique position he was in and understood his need to put family first and job second. However, these documents point to a greater level of involvement in his brother’s efforts than we previously knew. As a result, we have suspended Chris indefinitely, pending further evaluation.“

  *  *  *

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  CNN is reviewing material released Monday that showed host Chris Cuomo was not truthful to viewers when he told them in August that he did not speak to fellow media members about the scandal that engulfed his brother Andrew Cuomo.

  “The thousands of pages of additional transcripts and exhibits that were released today by the NY Attorney General deserve a thorough review and consideration,” CNN said in a statement.

  “We will be having conversations and seeking additional clarity about their significance as they relate to CNN over the next several days,” the news outlet added.

  Speaking on his show earlier this year, Chris Cuomo claimed that he “never made calls to the press about my brother’s situation.”

  

  But the newly released material showed Chris Cuomo tapped sources, including some inside rival outlets, to try to ascertain if more women were coming forward to accuse his brother of sexual misconduct.

  In one case, Chris Cuomo was tasked by Melissa DeRosa, at the time a top aide to Andrew Cuomo, with gathering “intel” about a looming story by New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow.

  Chris Cuomo was successful, telling DeRosa in a text message on March 15 that Farrow’s story “not ready for tomorrow.”

  In another message, Chris Cuomo appeared to signal that he spoke directly with Farrow.

  He also checked into rumored stories by other outlets, including Politico.

  Other texts showed the CNN host drafted entire statements he hoped the New York gubernatorial office would release and attribute to Andrew Cuomo, who was governor at the time.

  Chris Cuomo has not responded to requests for comment.

  He told investigators during a deposition that he did not try to affect any reports.

  “If I had tried to influence any of the reporting at CNN or anywhere else, I guarantee you, you people would know, and so would a lot of others,” he said.

  “So the idea of one reporter calling another to find out about what’s coming down the pipe is completely business-as-usual.”

  Experts have told The Epoch Times that Chris Cuomo’s behavior violates journalism standards and questioned CNN’s lack of transparency regarding the situation.

  It is unethical for a journalist to use their position, contacts, and influence to help a family member or friend involved in an investigation by law enforcement,” Rebecca Aguilar, president of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), said in an email.

  “The SPJ Code of Ethics clarifies the rules: Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived, minimize harm and be accountable and transparent,” she added.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 18:35

• Los Angeles Now Enforcing Vaccine Mandates For Indoor Businesses
  Los Angeles Now Enforcing Vaccine Mandates For Indoor Businesses

  Authored by Li Hai via The Epoch Times,

  The City of Los Angeles has started enforcement of its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for indoor businesses.

  

  The mandate, also named SafePassLA, requires all people eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, including kids 12 and above, to show photo ID and proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 when entering indoor restaurants, gyms, entertainment facilities, personal care establishments, and some city buildings.

  From Monday, inspectors from the Department of Building and Safety, and authorized agents, started enforcing the ordinance.

  Business owners who violate the mandate will receive a warning for the first violation, a $1,000 fine for a second violation, and a $2,000 fine for a third violation. Fines are capped at $5,000 for four or more violations.

  The city said the measure would help stop the spread of COVID-19, a disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, or the novel coronavirus.

  The mandate comes from an ordinance (pdf) which was adopted by the city in October. The ordinance became effective on Nov. 8.

  The mandate allows for medical or religious exemptions.

  “A patron must provide the covered location with a verbal self-attestation to qualify for the exemption,” the city said on its website. The patrons should be directed to use an outdoor area.

  “If an outdoor area is not available, the patron may be permitted to use an indoor area by providing proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours before entry and photo identification.”

  The mandate doesn’t apply to business employees.

  Patrons are required to wear masks when they’re not actively eating or drinking, even they’re fully vaccinated. The city said that’s because the mandate does not modify any health orders issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

  Some business owners have expressed concerned that the mandate will affect their businesses.

  Restaurateurs in New York City told The Epoch Times last month that business went down 40 to 60 percent due to the city’s vaccine mandate. New York City enacted a similar requirement in August and started enforcing the rule on Sept. 13.

  Milbet Del Cid, owner of Amalia’s, a Guatemalan restaurant in Los Angeles, told Los Angeles Times that criticism poured in on social media earlier this month when she alerted her clients that she would soon be asking them to show proof of vaccination.

  “If you’re obligated to ask,” one customer wrote in response, “then we won’t eat there anymore, so there.”

  Beginning Nov. 4, Los Angeles County, where the City of Los Angeles is located, also issued a similar but less expansive mandate, mainly focused on adult-oriented businesses providing alcohol.

  The city is also requiring proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test within 72 hours to participate in outdoor events with 5,000 more people. This is stricter than the county mandate, which applies to outdoor events with 10,000 or more people.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 18:25

• Jussie Smollett's Defense: Osundario Brothers 'Sophisticated' Criminals Who Set Him Up
  Jussie Smollett’s Defense: Osundario Brothers ‘Sophisticated’ Criminals Who Set Him Up

  Jussie Smollett says two Nigerian-born brothers – one of whom was his personal trainer, lover, and alleged drug dealer – are “sophisticated” criminals who set him up. The 39-year-old actor is accused of lying to police about being the victim of a racist and homophobic assault. The class-4 felony carries a sentence of up to three years in prison, however experts cited by Fox News think he would most likely face probation and perhaps community service.

  

  Smollett trial: in opening, Smollett’s attorney is telling jury that Smollett is a victim. The Osundairo brothers are “sophisticated” criminals that did not like Jussie.

  — Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) November 30, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundario, claim Smollett paid them $3,500 to stage an infamous hate-crime hoax on January 29, 2019 – when the former “Empire” star claimed he was attacked around 2 a.m. by two white men who recognized him from the show shouted racist and homophobic slurs, doused him in a bleach-like liquid, hung a rope around his neck, and yelled “This is MAGA country.“

  The MSM uncritically reported the ‘hate crime,’ without questioning obvious holes in the story – such as why two Trump supporters were hanging out in Chicago at 2am in the freezing cold. Then-Senator Kamala Harris called it a “modern day lynching.”

  Smollett was indicted twice following a six-month special counsel investigation.

  According to Smollett’s attorney, there was “an elephant in this room – assumptions,” as the Daily Wire reports.

  Fox News‘ Matt Fin reports that the prosecution focused on arguing that Smollett had faked his own hate crime, including the fact that Smollett had initially refused to turn over his cell phone when investigators requested it – which the prosecutor said may have been to avoid investigators discovering that he had contacted one of the Osundario brothers.

  Smollett trial: prosecutor is repeatedly calling Smollett’s incident a “fake hate crime.” Really using the word fake a lot in front of jury.

  — Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) November 30, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Prosecutor says Smollett didn’t want CPD to see communication with one of the Osundairo brothers

  — Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) November 30, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  In November of 2019, Smollett filed a lawsuit against the brothers for ‘concocting the whole thing.’

  Smollett – whose sisters worked for President Obama, was originally slapped with a 16-count indictment for lying to the police, however the Cook County State Attorney’s office suddenly dropped the charges after  Michelle Obama’s former Chief of Staff, Tina Tchen, pressured Chicago’s top prosecutor, Kim Foxx, to transfer the case to the FBI. When that wasn’t done, Foxx’s office decided not to pursue the case. 

  Explaining their decision to drop the case, Foxx’s office said: “After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollet’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition & appropriate resolution.”

  As Fox News reports, former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani thinks the prosecution has a good case.

  “The prosecution is strong because of corroborating, independent evidence that is consistent with Smollett making a false police report,” she said, adding “What type of explanation can Smollett’s attorney have to justify him contacting the brothers?”

  According to experts, Smollett will probably get a slap on the wrist.

  “Smollett is facing 6 counts of essentially minor class 4 felonies that carry a maximum sentence of three years in State prison,” said Los Angeles-based criminal defense attorney Silva Megerditchian, adding “The judge will consider that Smollett has no history of any arrests nor convictions — and thus will likely give him a probationary sentence. Keeping that in mind, however, this was a case that got national attention, and stirred a lot of anger that Smollett would stage this kind of grotesque racial attack.  As well, the City of Chicago spent a lot of money investigating these false charges. Thus, I would not be surprised if the Judge imposes some kind of sentence, considering the nation is watching.”

  (h/t Daily Wire)

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 18:05

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Kemp: European Gas Prices Jump Again As Freezing Temps Pressure Inventories
  Kemp: European Gas Prices Jump Again As Freezing Temps Pressure Inventories

  By John Kemp, Reuters Senior Market Analyst

  Europe’s gas prices have started rising again as a colder-than-normal start to winter makes unusually large inroads into the already meagre volume of gas in storage.

  

  Futures prices for gas delivered in January 2022 via the Dutch Title Transfer Facility have climbed to more than 93 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh), up from a recent low of 65 euros a month ago. Previous market expectations Russia would begin large-scale gas deliveries to Europe via existing pipelines and the newly completed but not yet approved Nord Stream 2 have not been borne out.

   

  Instead the winter heating season has started with unusually low temperatures which have led to a big increase in demand for gas for heating and power generation (https://tmsnrt.rs/3cZ9qrp).

  Northwest Europe has been hit by repeated waves of colder-than-average temperatures over the last two months, according to temperature records compiled by the U.S. Climate Assessment Database.

  

  Daily temperatures at Frankfurt airport, a proxy for the major population centers of Northwest Europe, have averaged more than 0.4 degrees Celsius below the long-term seasonal average since the start of October.

  

  As a result, the volume of gas in storage across the 27 countries of the European Union and Britain has fallen by the equivalent of 58 terawatt-hours (TWh) compared with the start of October, one of the largest drawdowns over the last decade.

  

  Gas stocks were already low going into winter, with volumes at the lowest level since 2013, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe.

  The inventory position has failed to improve since then and stocks are still at the lowest level for the time of year since 2013.

  

  Prices are rising again in an effort to slow the rate of inventory depletion by rationing demand from industrial users and power generators.

  Europe’s energy crunch has not gone away, even if it has been displaced in the headlines by the new variant of coronavirus and the violent gyrations in oil prices. In consequence, the risk of a price spike if there is a sustained period of exceptionally cold temperatures between now and the end of February remains very high.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/30/2021 – 02:00

• A Tale Of Two Cities: Kenosha Vs. Waukesha
  A Tale Of Two Cities: Kenosha Vs. Waukesha

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

  Both Wisconsin towns, Kenosha, and Waukesha, about 50 miles apart by car, were the recent sites of multiple deaths. The violence in both made national news. Yet in contradictory ways both reflected the common themes of America’s current legal, media, and societal corruption.  

  

  The relevant public prosecutors in both were in the news for alleged ideological bias. Specifically, they habitually calibrated the charging, indicting, and trying (or not) of defendants through ideological lenses and community pressure rather than on the basis of the facts and the law.  

  Kyle Rittenhouse was a 17-year-old armed youth who volunteered to protect business properties at the height of the August 2020 arson, riots, and looting in Kenosha. He was pursued and attacked by three members from a larger group who chased the armed youth, presumably either to disarm, injure, or kill him—or perhaps all three. 

  Rittenhouse variously was assaulted, kicked, and had a firearm pointed at him. In reaction, he fatally shot two of his pursuing attackers and wounded a third. Kenosha prosecutors reviewed videos of the altercations. They saw clearly that Rittenhouse was running away from his assailants. He was variously rushed by one assailant, kicked by another, and struck with a skateboard by still another. Again, a final pursuer pointed a gun at him at close range.  

  No matter. The Kenosha district attorney’s office charged Rittenhouse with several felonies including two first-degree homicide charges. All four whom Rittenhouse fired at—whether he missed, wounded, or fatally shot—had lengthy arrest records. Three were convicted felons; the fourth had a long arrest record. 

  Given the lengthy and quite horrific rap sheet of Rittenhouse’s first attacker Joseph Rosenbaum (including multiple counts of pedophiliac rape), it is difficult to understand why the latter was not in jail (he had been released earlier that day from a mental facility to which he had been committed after a failed suicide attempt). The common denominator to the various prior convictions of his other three assailants was that they should have led to consequences far worse, given that many of their arrest charges were dropped, or bail was sometimes waived, or plea bargaining turned serious charges into merely bothersome ones. The release of violent offenders on little or no bail seems now thematic in Wisconsin. 

  Shortly after the August 2020 shootings, the media, Joe Biden, and most of the left-wing commentariat had claimed Rittenhouse was a “white supremacist,” even though there was no evidence of such a libel, then or now. Remember, the Kenosha shootings took place just nine weeks before the November presidential elections, at a time when the Left was framing the incumbent Trump as a “white supremacist” and Joe Biden a “healer.”  

  The Racist Construct 

  The shootings were immediately declared to be “racial.” Yet both the shooter Rittenhouse and all of his attackers who were wounded or killed were white (a fourth assailant, an African-American who kicked Rittenhouse while he was on the ground escaped without injury).  

  What followed in the media was the most egregious example of concocted fictions since the Russian collusion hoax. Rittenhouse was falsely accused of crossing “state lines” (plural), while unlawfully armed with an “illegal automatic weapon.”  

  In truth, he did not buy the Smith & Wesson semi-automatic rifle, much less bring it into nearby Kenosha, Wisconsin from nearby Antioch, Illinois. It was legal for Rittenhouse to possess and use the firearm. The gun itself was not unlawful. He did not purchase it but had been given it by a friend. And Kenosha was his alternate home in that it was where his father and other relatives lived. Rittenhouse, then, was constructed as the proverbial white supremacist of the sort warned about by the likes of Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley. 

  At various times during the trial, the prosecuting attorneys called Rittenhouse a coward. They claimed he should have faced the pursuing mob of at least a dozen and willingly taking a beating from them face-to-face, in at least one case at gunpoint. The jury inter alia was told that the ongoing arson and other violent acts were not serious crimes, and that the three who attacked Rittenhouse were near-heroic victims.  

  Protestors outside the courthouse tried to intimidate the defense and jurors. A journalist sought to follow the jury bus, ostensibly to divulge their identities or to intimidate them (MSNBC was subsequently banned from the courtroom).  

  The piece de resistance was the lead DA’s pointing an empty semi-automatic weapon at the jury, with his finger on the trigger—all in the aftermath of Alec Baldwin’s accidental shooting with an “empty” loaded gun of two bystanders on a film set.  

  The DA apparently wished to scare the jury into a guilty verdict through the sensation of having a rifle pointed at them. Given the jury appears post facto to have been made up of reasonable people, that puerile gambit probably backfired. All that the imbecilic DA confirmed by his actions was the same recklessness as those in state and city government who had permitted parts of Kenosha to burn in the first place.       

  

  There were lots of suicidal prosecutorial stunts such as these in what turned out to be a circus of sorts. The DAs also sought to deprecate the constitutionally protected Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. They bizarrely saw their key witness admitting under cross examination that he had first pointed a handgun at Kyle Rittenhouse who then understandably fired at him. And they deliberately released an inferior version of the video record of the shooting to the defense while keeping the superior one to their perceived advantage. 

  So, the state’s madness raised strange questions. Were the incompetent DAs simply a window into a dysfunctional Kenosha County district attorney’s office where bumbling was an institutionalized force-multiplier to bias? Were the state prosecutors deliberately inept in order to prompt a mistrial and thus a retrial/second chance of their botched case? Or were they lazily going through the motions to satisfy the mob, but did not really believe Rittenhouse was guilty? Or were they just mediocre camera-hungry wannabe celebrities, who wished to win cheap media attention for as long as the bewildered judge would put up with their bizarre antics? 

  The Message of Acquittal

  A jury unanimously cleared Rittenhouse of all charges. It apparently concluded correctly that if law enforcement and the state either could not or would not protect lives and property in Kenosha, and if because of that dereliction of duty some citizens stepped up to take up the role that the police had utterly abandoned, then as citizens they had a right to defend themselves if attacked by those committing violence.  

  For some time, media demand has exceeded the available supply of clear-cut cases of white oppressors and black victims, at least if the Jussie Smollett hoax, the “hands up don’t shoot” lie, and the photoshopped pictures and edited tapes of George Zimmerman are any indication.  

  Yet the real reason the Left strained to gin up the theme of white-on-white violence as an example of racism was their larger agenda of sending a message to middle America: no American, in times of riot, arson, and looting, should have the right to use firearms to protect property. And under no circumstances could a citizen use a gun to ward off those intending to maim or kill him. Had Rittenhouse been found guilty, there no longer would be recourse for citizens living in cities where criminals were freely given the streets. 

  In other words, had such a clear-cut case of self-defense morphed into a successful murder conviction, then the most powerful figure in the nation would become the local district attorney. De facto, a DA could empower a mob to loot, burn, steal, and injure by refusing to indict those arrested—even if an increasingly politicized mayor and police chief chose to allow their officers to keep the public safe. We would then assume that in this state of nature anyone protecting property during a riot would be fair game for the mob, given the target would know he could become a convicted felon by defending himself from attack. 

  So, the Left understood well the messaging of attacking the open city and undefended town of Kenosha and the conviction of a “murderer” Rittenhouse: accept our political agendas and premises or otherwise your culpable community will be torn apart with impunity, and any who chose to combat the violence with violence will be charged with capital crimes. 

  Those Criminal SUVs 

  Not long after one Rittenhouse was acquitted, one Darrell Brooks, Jr., an African-American with a 20-year record of serious felonies, allegedly drove his car deliberately into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, killing 6 innocents and injuring over 60. 

  Unlike the dishonest media reaction lying about Rittenhouse, who had no criminal record, there was initial careful restraint not to identify the career criminal Brooks as the murderous driver who weaponized his vehicle against parade-goers. Despite first-hand accounts from bystanders that the lethal driver was an African-American with dreadlocks, the media, feigning unaccustomed professionalism in this instance, withheld rush-to-judgment identification and culpability. Joe Biden—for a moment—was commendably quiet in editorializing about the racial motivations or ideology of a suspect. 

  For a while the media ran with its own concocted rumor that Brooks merely was fleeing from an “altercation” and apparently had mistakenly turned the wrong way into a crowd—despite videos showing the driver deliberately ramming through street barriers repeatedly to seek out targets. Intent likely explains why he killed and injured so many innocents.  

  Finally, the news settled into the present narrative of a “car crash,”—as if a driverless vehicle on autopilot had simply bumped into various people in the street—before burying the murders altogether on their back pages and dropping the crime from the evening news. Or as the Washington Post put it, “Here’s what we know so far on the sequence of events that led to the Waukesha tragedy caused by a SUV.” 

  

  That media-generated ruse continued even when details of Brooks’ lengthy felony record were finally released. At the time he was mowing down strangers, he had five open arrest charges, including two felonies. Brooks had been released on $1,000 bail just two days earlier, in another eerie “coincidence” after being arrested for attempting to run over a woman and her child—the same modus operandi reified at the Waukesha Christmas slaughter.  

  An alien from Mars who examined Brooks’s life of crime, his recent violence, and the ease with which he was serially let loose upon the public might have concluded some sort of “privilege” as the cause of exemption. 

  Brooks posed on social media as an incompetent but narcissistic rapper. He left a video trail not just of his mediocre recordings, but of clear evidence of virulent anti-Semitism and anti-white racism, “So when we start bakk knokkin white people TF out ion wanna hear it…the old white ppl 2, KNOKK DEM TF OUT!! PERIOD.”  

  As pundits strained to deny any connection between the climate of BLM anger over the Rittenhouse verdict and Brooks’ murders, Brooks’ own testimonies point to a connection, at least in the sense of hating people on the basis of their race. Indeed, regional Milwaukee BLM activist Vaun Mayes quickly alleged that the Rittenhouse acquittal had earned the homicidal payback.  

  A low-level Democratic functionary tweeted that the dead children of Waukesha were proper karma for Rittenhouse walking free: “I’m sad anytime anyone dies. I just believe in Karma and this came around quick on the citizens of Wisconsin.” Or as Mayes further elaborated: Brooks was an insurrectionist whose violence had jumpstarted a supposed “revolution,” his apparent euphemism for mass murder. “But it sounds possible that the revolution has started in Wisconsin. It started with this Christmas parade.”

  Brooks is, for a while, in jail. Yet for some crazy reason he can be freed on a $5 million bond. He awaits charges of mass homicide—although one never quite knows. The Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisolm is a controversial “reformer” DA, whose campaigns have been funded in part by the George Soros conglomerate. 

  Creepier still, in the past a prescient Chisolm had boasted about his own future to the Milwaukee Sentinel, namely that his prosecutorial and bail policies would eventually release career criminals onto the street who would “inevitably” kill some innocents. Yet he riffed that such carnage was acceptable collateral damage from his decriminalization agendas: “Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into [a] treatment program, who’s going to go out and kill somebody? You bet. Guaranteed. It’s guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.” 

  One wonders whether Chisolm will take that argument to the families of the Waukesha deceased—that the loss of their loved ones was a reasonable sacrifice to ensure that misunderstood 20-year criminals like Darrell Brooks, Jr. were not kept behind bars. 

  So, what are we left with from these horrors of two cities? 

  In Kenosha the media and the Left ginned up race when there was no such component in the trial. But in Waukesha they perpetuated racial arson and smothered the truth. That is, they kept largely silent when there clearly was racial hatred—given Brooks’ own record of anti-white and anti-Semitic venom. Again, the media can turn from creation to suppression on a dime, given the common theme of ginning up racial strife and hatred. 

  An amoral media and Left, so far, have kept an inconvenient Waukesha “car crash” out of the mainstream news—reversing their wild sensational obsessions with Kenosha. After all, in their unhinged racialized worldview, the demonization of a 17-year-old white male, who shot three other white males, still could be squeezed for racial juice, given the larger contextual landscape of a riot over a police wounding of an African-American male.  

  The shooting of Jacob Blake that set off the Kenosha riots was later determined to be justified, given the armed suspect was heading toward his car, after fighting with police, who were called to the residence to protect a woman who had a restraining order against the career violent felon. 

  • In sum, Rittenhouse had no criminal record; all four of his assailants had lengthy arrest records. Three of them were ex-felons. He had no record of the racial hatred of which he was accused.  

  • In contrast, Brooks was an abject violent racist whom the media sought to shield. And he was a career felon, who both long ago and quite recently should have been kept behind bars so that he would not murder innocents.  

  How a Wisconsin ex-felon received a $1,000 bail bond and freedom to mow down innocents, after trying to run down two with his car, while another juvenile without an arrest record, with good grounds to claim self-defense, was required to post a $2 million bond (and so stayed incarcerated pending charges without running water in his cell) is a commentary on the abject implosion of the American justice system.  

  Rittenhouse should have never been charged; Brooks should not have been out of jail. The effort to make the former a beneficiary of white supremacy and the latter a victim of it required a level of amoral media deceit that finally was unsustainable even in this bankrupt age. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 23:40

• Russia Starts Full-Scale Production Of Hypersonic Missile That Can 'Evade Western Defenses'
  Russia Starts Full-Scale Production Of Hypersonic Missile That Can ‘Evade Western Defenses’

  Russia announced on Saturday that it has begun full-scale production of its 6,670 MPH Zircon hypersonic missile which they claim can evade ‘all’ Western defense systems, according to state-sponsored TASS news agency.

  

  The ‘unstoppable’ weapon has been ordered to be manufactured at the top-secret Reutovo plant near Moscow, even before trials have been completed, following several recent successful tests of the Mach-9 munition – the most recent being on November 18.

  “Serial production of Tsirkon missiles is underway at NPO Mashinostroyenia (plant), although state trials of this product’s surface launches will continue,” according to an anonymous source.

  So – Russian state news wants the world to know that they’re kicking it up a notch, ahead of schedule, with a weapon that they claim will render all the NATO border defenses completely useless.

  According to the report, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the missile to be deployed next year by the Russian Navy – saying that it is “truly unparalleled in the world.”

  The Zircon, reportedly Putin’s ‘weapon of choice’ to wipe out American cities in the event of a nuclear war, was successfully fired from a submarine for the first time in October. It’s designed to strike both sea and ground targets, according to Tass, and has a range of more than 625 miles.

  News of the hypersonic missile comes as the UK army announced that it would beef up its ‘permanent’ presence of troops and hardware in Germany, despite drawing down their forces a year ago, according to The Sunday Times.

  On Friday, US State Department official Karen Donfried expressed concerns over ‘large and unusual’ Russian troop movements near the border with Ukraine, according to the Daily Mail.

  NATO foreign ministers will next week discuss options for dealing with the perceived Russian threat, amid claims by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of Moscow’s backing for a plot to overthrow him, a claim the Kremlin has denied.

  Other flashpoints relate to Russian gas supplies to Europe during the winter amid shortage fears, and Moscow’s ally Belarus encouraging a flood of migrants to break into the EU.

  The Zircon will be deployed on Russian frigates and, later, on submarines. -Daily Mail

  According to a recent announcement, more tests of the Zircon system will proceed in 2024 or 2025 despite the decision to begin manufacturing immediately.

  “They will be carried out from the Project 885M submarine Perm that will differ from its predecessors by a slightly modified design,” said one source from the ministry of defense. “If the submarine is not ready for the Zircon test-launches in 2024, they will be resumed in the first half of 2025.”

  According to Kremlin deputy premier Yury Borisov, Russia is kicking America’s ass at hypersonic weapons development and aims to maintain its lead.

  

  “We have broken forward, specifically, in the sphere of hypersonic weapons and (those) based on new physical principles,” he said, adding “We now have serious advantages in this regard over the leading Western countries – and will try to maintain this position.”

  Now the question is; how far will President Brandon go to defend his good friends in Ukraine?

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 23:20

• Victim Hopes For Justice In Ghislaine Maxwell Trial
  Victim Hopes For Justice In Ghislaine Maxwell Trial

  Authored by Charlotte Cuthbertson via The Epoch Times,

  Jeffrey Epstein molested her and she didn’t tell a soul for 17 years.

  

  Teresa Helm was 22, and she had already patched her life back together after being sexually abused by a close family member, starting at age 8.

  “I really suffered in silence,” Helm told The Epoch Times’ “Insight” magazine.

  As a child, she had told her mother about the abuse in the hope that she’d make it stop. Instead, her mother told her not to tell anyone, and it continued for 3 1/2 years.

  “I just didn’t get help, even though I kept asking for it. And so after what happened with Jeffrey, I suffered in silence, just like I had always kind of done,” she said.

  In 2002, Helm had moved to California from Ohio and was attending a massage therapy school, positive of a bright future. It became even more exciting when a fellow student, a year ahead of her, approached her about an opportunity for a traveling massage therapist job. Helm was interested and was connected with another young woman, whom she subsequently met at Santa Monica to discuss the potential job.

  “We looked similar, we were at a similar age, so I connected with her,” Helm said. “I never felt like anything she was saying to me wasn’t legitimate, or I never felt fearful.”

  

  Teresa Helm at age 21. (Courtesy of Teresa Helm)

  Helm said the woman painted a phenomenal picture of what life would be like as “Miss Maxwell’s” personal traveling massage therapist—private jets, top chefs, access to the best education all over the world.

  “So I’d say that she did her job very well. Because in an hour or so of walking around the boardwalk, I was like, ‘Wow. This is really great. I’m so lucky, this is meant to be.’”

  Wanting to grasp the incredible opportunity, Helm told the woman she was interested, and was informed that she’d need to fly to New York City and meet Maxwell for the final interview.

  Two weeks later, Helm’s travel to New York City had been arranged—flights, driver, an Upper East Side apartment to stay in, a gift basket waiting.

  “I go meet with Miss Maxwell. I was expecting to give a massage because that’s what the interview was pertaining to. And everything with Ghislaine Maxwell was legitimate and pleasant, and she was very polite. Her home was stunning,” Helm said.

  “I was super impressed with her because she’s this very well-spoken woman, and she’s clearly successful because of her beautiful home, and she has photos on the wall of ex-president Bill Clinton. And I’m thinking: ‘Wow, she’s really something special, she’s worked hard. She’s accomplished a lot in her life.’”

  Helm spent a couple of hours in the home before Maxwell told her she was next going to meet up with Maxwell’s partner, Jeffrey.

  It was the first time Helm had heard of a partner, but nothing had indicated she should feel alarmed or that she was in any kind of danger. Any red flags, she realized in hindsight, had been easily normalized and explained away.

  Even when Maxwell told her to “give Jeffrey whatever he wants” during his massage because he “always gets what he wants,” Helm thought Maxwell clearly must mean, “Do a good job, because he’s had a lot of professional massages.”

  “Because of my trust with [Maxwell]—she was able to create that trusting bond within me in a matter of hours—I literally walked myself to the man of the house who was going to assault me,” Helm said.

  “I took myself there, because those three women did their job perfectly well and I didn’t suspect a darn thing. When I look back at the fact that three women set me up to be assaulted, it’s just disgusting. It’s a different level of betrayal.”

  Helm said Epstein sexually assaulted her in his office during the interview and threatened her as she ran out of the house, her world shaking and head spinning.

  Shocked to the core and full of shame, Helm returned to California the following day.

  

  (Photo and illustration by The Epoch Times)

  “The shame was overwhelming, it was paralyzing,” she recalled. “I was just so ashamed to say anything.”

  Her life spiraled down, and three months later she broke her lease, dropped out of school, and returned to Ohio.

  For the next five years, Helm fell into a destructive pattern. But just weeks before her 28th birthday, she found out she was pregnant, and life shifted again—this time toward the positive.

  “That’s what really saved my life and turned my life around,” she said. “It was the first time I really valued myself. It was like that sense of purpose. And knowing that I was going to protect my child the way that I was never protected.

  “Then after having him, I was so honored to be his mom. And then it really actually dug up, it was like, almost hatred toward my mom and Jeffrey. That first year of my son’s life was a lot of emotional processing for me. And I just wanted to kind of remove myself from the world and just be a mom. And that’s what I did.”

  Helm’s son has just turned 14, and she also has a daughter who is 7. She is the full-time caregiver for both.

  ‘The World Shifted’

  Helm, who had moved to Florida, was folding laundry one Thursday evening in July 2019 when she went online and saw a headline about Epstein after he’d been arrested for sex trafficking. She clicked the link to open the article and came face-to-face with her abuser. In that instant, she realized “Jeffrey” was Epstein.

  Stunned, she sat down and googled Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.

  “It was life changing, just in that moment. It was like retraumatization, No. 1. No. 2, it was like the world shifted and changed all over again. It’s been different ever since that moment, like the world changed yet again, in that moment and it has not gone back. Nor will it,” Helm said.

  “Because I didn’t know there were others. I didn’t know that this was this huge thing with these people.”

  The following day, after a regular yoga class, Helm sat in her car and sobbed as the emotions swirled. She decided it was time to break her silence.

  The opportunity to speak out presented itself quickly.

  Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Aug. 10, 2019, one month after his arrest. A medical examiner ruled it a suicide by hanging nine days later.

  The New York judge, Richard Berman, would be forced to dismiss the charges against Epstein—which included the sex trafficking of dozens of minors from as early as 1995—but not before he allowed survivors to speak.

  Twenty-three women spoke in the courthouse on Aug. 27 about being sexually abused by Epstein, either in person or through a lawyer.

  “I’m coming forward because it is time to bring light to that darkness, and it’s time to replace that darkness with light,” Helm said that day. She had only decided that morning to speak out and use her name publicly.

  Another survivor, “Jane Doe 9,” said she was 15 when she met Epstein, in 2004.

  “I flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane to Zorro Ranch, where I was sexually molested by him for many hours.” she said through a lawyer. “What I remember most vividly was him explaining to me how beneficial the experience was for me and how much he was helping me to grow. Yikes.”

  Epstein’s Zorro Ranch is in New Mexico. He also owned multimillion dollar properties in New York, Florida, and France, and his own islands in the Caribbean, Little St. James Island and Great St. James Island. Epstein has been linked with a veritable who’s who of the fashion and political worlds.

  

  Attorney Gloria Allred (R) and her client Teala Davies, who claims to have been a victim of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein when she was a minor, at a press conference to announce a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate, in New York on Nov. 21, 2019. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

  Chauntae Davies also spoke in the courtroom.

  She said she was recruited by Maxwell while doing a massage apprenticeship.

  “Upon my first meeting her, I wouldn’t know I had been recruited until many years later, when I would read it in a headline,” Davies said.

  She said Maxwell and Epstein took her in, sent her to school, and gave her a job.

  “They flew me around the world, introduced me to a world I had only dreamt of and made me feel as though I had become a part of their family—another thing I was desperately searching for,” Davies said.

  “But on my third or fourth time meeting them, they brought me to Jeffrey’s island for the first time.”

  Davies said a knock on her door late at night indicated that Epstein was ready for another massage, so she hesitantly went to his villa.

  As Epstein began his assault on her, Davies said she told him, “No, please stop.”

  “But that just seemed to excite him more. He continued to rape me, and when he was finished, he hopped off and went to the shower.”

  Davies said she ran out of the villa, cried herself to sleep, and then spent two weeks in a Los Angeles hospital throwing up from a neurological disorder that manifests into violent vomiting attacks, largely triggered by stress.

  “Jeffrey’s abuse would continue for the next three years, and I allowed it to continue because I had been taken advantage of my entire life and had been conditioned to just accept it.”

  

  A protestor holds up a sign of Jeffrey Epstein in front of the federal courthouse in New York City on July 8, 2019. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

  Maxwell on Trial

  Helm had finally broken her silence, and it was a watershed moment.

  She didn’t get to see Epstein face his charges, but she’s eager to be in court to see Maxwell face hers.

  FBI agents arrested Maxwell at her New Hampshire estate on July 2, 2020. She has been in a Brooklyn jail since. Bail has been denied several times, with Judge Alison Nathan ruling that she is a flight risk. The trial was originally set for July, but was delayed until Nov. 29 and is expected to last six weeks. Jury selection began on Nov. 16.

  Maxwell is charged with sex trafficking children, perjury, and the enticement of minors while she was a close associate of Epstein, according to a superseding indictment filed in the Southern District of New York on March 29.

  “In particular, from at least in or about 1994, up to and including at least in or about 2004, Maxwell assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18,” the indictment alleges.

  “Moreover, in an effort to conceal her crimes, Maxwell repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct, including in relation to some of the minor victims described herein, when providing testimony under oath in 2016.”

  Virginia Giuffre (formerly Virginia Roberts), one of Epstein’s most well-known accusers, claimed in a 2016 deposition that she was directed by Maxwell to have sex with a number of rich and powerful men, including “foreign presidents,” a “well-known” prime minister, and “other world leaders.”

  None of the men Giuffre named in the documents have been charged, and all have denied the claims.

  

  A court officer stands outside a Manhattan courthouse where media have gathered for the arraignment hearing of Ghislaine Maxwell in New York City on July 14, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

  Maxwell, often described as a British socialite, maintains her innocence on all charges and in a 2016 deposition claimed she had no idea Epstein abused young girls.

  During the deposition, Maxwell was asked: “Did Jeffrey Epstein have a scheme to recruit underage girls for sexual massages? If you know.”

  She replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” according to the transcript. “I never saw any inappropriate underage activities with Jeffrey ever.”

  Maxwell acknowledged that former President Bill Clinton traveled on Epstein’s plane, but denied introducing Britain’s Prince Andrew to underage sex partners.

  “I’m ready for this trial to start,” Helm said.

  “I really aim to be there and look at her right in her face, and equally as important is for her to see me.”

  Helm isn’t named in the indictment and won’t be testifying, but that doesn’t matter.

  “I’m hopeful that there will be justice in this, that she will finally be held accountable and finally be sentenced for crimes that she has committed and for the lives that she has just willingly stepped in and ruined. This is a woman that changed the entire trajectory of my life and not for the better.”

  Helm said she hopes Maxwell is found guilty on all charges and receives the maximum penalties.

  “I don’t think for a moment that she deserves to be on the outside of a jail cell,” she said.

  “I and other girls, we’re on the outside of these bars, and yet we haven’t fully regained our freedom back. So I hope she gets the maximum sentence. She doesn’t deserve any less than that.”

  Helm said she often gets asked if she thinks Epstein’s death means Maxwell is now a scapegoat and is being punished for his crimes.

  “No, I do not. She knew what she was doing. She didn’t think twice about doing it. She did it countless times. She did it … very masterfully, very successfully,” she said.

  “You don’t help facilitate and run and orchestrate one of the largest sex trafficking rings on this globe, on this earth, without knowing what you’re doing and intentionally doing it.”

  

  An exterior view of the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City on July 14, 2020. (Arturo Holmes/Getty Images)

  The indictment alleges that Maxwell befriended some of Epstein’s minor victims prior to their abuse, including by asking the victims about their lives, their schools, and their families. Other times, Maxwell and Epstein would take the victim shopping or to the movies, or pay travel or education expenses.

  “Having developed a rapport with a victim, Maxwell would try to normalize sexual abuse for a minor victim by, among other things, discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein,” the court document states.

  The indictment goes on to say that in order to “maintain and increase his supply of victims,” Epstein, Maxwell, and other Epstein employees also paid certain victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused by Epstein.

  Helm said she has tried to understand what would cause a woman such as Ghislaine to intentionally set girls up to be forever traumatized. She said she has read how Ghislaine lost her father, whom she was very close to, and met Epstein not long afterwards.

  Helm said she lost her own father unexpectedly almost seven years ago.

  “I still to this very day miss him incredibly, and I am not out there hurting people,” she said. “There’s no grievance, or there’s no tragedy that justifies you turning around becoming literally a monster.”

  Maxwell’s lawyers didn’t respond to a request for comment by Insight.

  Epstein avoided criminal charges for years, raising questions about being protected by the rich and powerful. In September 2007, he entered into a nonprosecution agreement that gave him immunity against prosecution for numerous federal sex crimes in the Southern District of Florida.

  As part of the deal, in 2008, Epstein ultimately pled guilty to state charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and was registered as a sex offender. He spent 13 months in jail but was granted work release for 12 hours a day, six days a week.

  The Grooming Process

  Grooming and recruitment are critical steps in the sex trafficking industry.

  “If you don’t have a successful grooming process, you don’t have the abuse, because it just doesn’t make it that far,” Helm said.

  Jennifer Hill, assistant executive director of the Children’s Assessment Center in Houston, said her organization sees 5,000 children a year who’ve been sexually abused, both by family members or through trafficking.

  And that’s just the children who have spoken up. “I think most people never, ever tell. And that’s what’s tragic,” she said.

  Hill said it’s hard to discern how many children don’t report abuse, but statistics show that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before they’re 18.

  Common events—the divorce of parents, a breakup, bullying, or the death of a family member—can all make a child vulnerable. Many trafficked children come from the foster care system. But sexual abuse is the most common source of vulnerability for sex-trafficked children—70 to 90 percent of these children have a history of sexual abuse, according to anti-trafficking organization Path2Freedom.

  Hill said the grooming and recruitment process takes different forms, but involves getting access to the intended victim and gaining their trust so that eventually they’ll be willing to listen to that person, and that person has some control over their behavior.

  For children, it can include buying gifts, listening to their problems, or helping them in some way. These days, a lot of grooming occurs online through messaging apps or social media and gaming platforms. Post-abuse, children can be threatened to stay silent.

  Hill said she hopes the Maxwell trial will spur other victims of trafficking and sexual abuse to come forward. As a former prosecutor of child sex abuse cases, she said a lot of abusers are teachers or trusted adults in the community, which can be intimidating for victims.

  Her organization conducts awareness trainings for law enforcement, medical professionals, mental health professionals, teachers, and the community on recognizing and reporting trafficking.

  Helm said so many lessons can be taken from the Maxwell case, “like the fact that it can be a woman.”

  “That woman groomed me precisely well, beautifully. And that grooming process is so crucial for parents to identify that this is what’s happening to their children. Or for a child to think I think this might be happening to me. Because that grooming process is such a transfer of power [and] a gatekeeper to the abuse.”

  During 2019, the National Human Trafficking hotline received reports of 11,500 human trafficking cases, representing more than 22,000 victims. California, Texas, and Florida are identified as the worst three states for human trafficking. In Texas alone, more than 79,000 children are being trafficked for sex, according to a study by the University of Texas at Austin.

  “There’s not one single zip code in this nation, not one that is exempt from trafficking,” Helm said.

  “It happens in the wealthiest of the wealthiest, to the most impoverished, and everything in between. It has exploded online.”

  

  A residence belonging to Jeffrey Epstein on East 71st St. on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City on July 8, 2019. (Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)

  The Threat Online

  Fifty-five percent of domestic sex-trafficking survivors who entered the life in 2015 or later met their trafficker for the first time using a mobile app, website, or text, said Tammy Toney-Butler, an anti-human trafficking consultant for Path2Freedom.

  Predators ramped up their sexual enticement of minors and the posting of child sexual abuse material as schools closed and kids worked online from home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

  The number of reports of online child sexual abuse materials reported to the NCMEC during the first six months of 2020 surged 90 percent to more than 12 million, the center reported. Reports of predators enticing minors went up 93 percent to more than 13,200.

  Facebook was used for most (59 percent) of the online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases in 2020, according to the Human Trafficking Institute’s annual trafficking report.

  That makes Facebook “by far the most frequently referenced website or app in public sources connected with these prosecutions, which was also true in 2019,” the report found.

  In June, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Facebook could be held liable if sex traffickers use the platform to prey on children, arguing the social media website isn’t a “lawless no-man’s-land.”

  The ruling was made following three Houston-area lawsuits involving teenage trafficking victims who alleged that they met their abusers through Facebook’s messaging service. Prosecutors also said that Facebook was negligent by not doing more to block sex traffickers from using the site.

  The court said the victims can move forward with their lawsuits against Facebook. They claimed that the company violated the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which was approved in 2009.

  Toney-Butler said the income traffickers can make from one victim can be close to $400,000 a year, and survivors have reported being forced to have sex more than 20 times a day while being six to seven months pregnant. And once a woman is over 18, she’s often seen by society as “a drug-addicted prostitute” rather than a victim of sex trafficking, she said.

  A child, after being pulled into sex trafficking, “only lives for seven years before they succumb to the environment,” Toney-Butler said. Suicide, drug overdose, and violence are often the killers.

  

  Teresa Helm (R) with three other sex-trafficking survivors, (L–R) Cathy Hoffman, Sabrina Lopez, and Nissi Hamilton, in Houston on April 24. (Kathleen O. Ryan)

  The Future

  Now 41, Helm is hopeful. Aside from looking after her children, she’s a fierce advocate and mentor to other survivors and a consultant to organizations and politicians to ensure laws and programs are victim-centered.

  “Helping others is the ultimate payback. That I didn’t completely break forever. I’ve been broken and I have repaired myself stronger,” she said.

  She referred to the old Japanese art form called kintsukuroi, or “to repair with gold,” which is the practice of repairing broken ceramics with gold, making them stronger and more beautiful than before.

  “And I definitely kind of view myself as that, in the fact that I can turn around and leverage this pain into purpose and help others—that’s the ultimate thing for me, to be able to be strong enough to go out and help others, help them change their lives, help them recover their lives and recover their power.”

  For Help

  The National Human Trafficking Hotline is confidential, toll-free, and available 24/7 in more than 200 languages.
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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 23:00

• China Sends Record 150 Jets Near Taiwan Over 4 Days, Keeping Up Pressure
  China Sends Record 150 Jets Near Taiwan Over 4 Days, Keeping Up Pressure

  China’s President Xi Jinping has just wrapped up a multi-day meeting with his top generals across major branches focused on military readiness. One key concern he articulated to the Central Military Commission was the recruitment of top talent toward the creation of a highly professional and skilled PLA military. No doubt military readiness related to Taiwan and the PLA Eastern Theater Command was discussed as well.

  Simultaneous with the meeting in Beijing which started late last week, China kept up the pressure on Taiwan, sending wave after wave of military flights into Taiwan’s defense identification zone (ADIZ). As usual, they flew near the southern part of the island with on Sunday 27 PLA aircraft at once breaching the zone – including nuclear capable long range bombers and a refueling plane – resulting in Taiwan scrambling its own jets and monitoring the flights via air defense systems. 

  

  “Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it deployed combat aircraft to ‘warn’ the Chinese jets to leave, as well as missile systems to monitor the planes,” Axios wrote of a response action now so frequent as to seem commonplace. 

  The past few days have been busy in airspace off Taiwan’s southern coast, in what’s been a steady uptick of such threatening flights. “Over the past year, the frequency of Chinese incursions has increased, with about 150 aircraft over a period of four days,” The Associated Press tallied by the close of Sunday.

  This could mark a new record set over a four-day time period, given the first week of October say 145 PLA aircraft within the same window, a prior record. The actions had corresponded with China’s 72nd annual National Day.

  Again, while such ADIZ incursions are now almost commonplace, Axios’ Zachary Basu has recently pointed out that the risk of severe miscalculation or ‘unintended incident’ only grows with every new large-scale formation that the PLA sends toward the island…

  Few experts see a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as imminent. But the chances of a devastating miscalculation grow each time a Chinese fighter jet enters Taiwan’s ADIZ, says Timothy Heath, senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation.

  Meanwhile a much smaller PLA formation was sent Monday, in what’s become a daily occurrence…

  5 PLA aircraft (Y-8 ASW, J-16*2 and J-10*2) entered #Taiwan’s southwest ADIZ on November 29, 2021. Please check our official website for more information: https://t.co/8fIy4AHeka pic.twitter.com/dCWTzdQf0R

  — 國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C. 🇹🇼 (@MoNDefense) November 29, 2021

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  Recall that a key focus of the Nov. 15 Biden-Xi summit was about Taiwan and an expressed desire for “guardrails” that might prevent the rival superpowers from stumbling into conflict. Xi had reportedly been firm in presenting Biden with demands surrounding the Taiwan issue, while Biden had reiterated the US is sticking by the ‘One China’ status quo and doesn’t wish to enter confrontation. 

  But as for any actual agreements or specifics, these were lacking from the summit: “The president was very clear in reaffirming very long-standing US policy and raising very clear concerns, but the idea of establishing specific guardrails with respect to Taiwan was not part of the conversation tonight,” a senor White House official had said at the conclusion of the summit.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 22:40

• San Francisco Homeless Insider Tells All
  San Francisco Homeless Insider Tells All

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

  Why progressives defend and finance open drug scenes…

  

  In my new book, San Fransicko, I describe why progressives create and defend what European researchers call “open drug scenes,” which are places in cities where drug dealers and buyers meet, and many addicts live in tents. Progressives call these scenes “homeless encampments,” and not only defend them but have encouraged their growth, which is why the homeless population in California grew 31 percent since 2000. This was mostly a West Coast phenomenon until recently. But now, the newly elected progressive mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, has decided to keep open a drug scene at Mass and Cass avenues, even though it has resulted in several deaths from drug overdoses and homicides.

  Progressives defend their approach as compassionate. Not everybody who is homeless is an addict, they say. Many are just down on their luck. Others turn to drugs after living on the street. What they need is our help. We should not ask people living in homeless encampments to go somewhere else. Homeless shelters are often more dangerous than living on the street. We should provide the people living in tents with money, food, clean needles, and whatever else they need to stay alive and comfortable. And we should provide everyone with their own apartment unit if that’s what they want.

  But this “harm reduction” approach is obviously failing. Cities already do a good job taking care of temporarily homeless people not addicted to drugs. Drug dealers stab and sometimes murder addicts who don’t pay. Women forced into prostitution to support their addictions are raped. Addicts are dying from overdose and poisoning. The addicts living in the open drug scenes commit many crimes including open drug use, sleeping on sidewalks, and defecating in public. Many steal to maintain their habits. The hands-off approach has meant that addicts do not spend any amount of time in jail or hospital where they can be off of drugs, and seek recovery.

  Now, even a growing number of people who have worked or still work within the homeless services sector are speaking out. A longtime San Francisco homeless service provider who read San Fransicko, and said they mostly agreed with it, reached out to me to share their views. At first this person said they wanted to speak on the record. But as the interview went on, and the person criticized their colleagues, they asked to remain anonymous, fearing retribution.

  Why “Housing First” Failed

  

  The main progressive approach for addressing homelessness, not just in San Francisco but in progressive cities around the nation, is “Housing First,” which is the notion that taxpayers should give, no questions asked, apartment units to anyone who says they are homeless, and asks for one. What actually works to reduce the addiction that forces many people onto the streets is making housing contingent on abstinence. But Housing First advocates oppose “contingency management,” as it’s called, because, they say, “Housing is a right,” and it should not be condition on behavior change.

  But such a policy is absurdly unrealistic, said the San Francisco homeless expert. “To pretend that this city could build enough permanent supportive housing for every homeless person who needs it is ludicrous,” the person said. “I wish it weren’t. I wish I lived in a land where there was plenty of housing. But now people are dying on our streets and it feels like we’re not doing very much about it.”

  The underlying problem with Housing First is that it enables addiction. “The National Academies of Sciences review [which showed that giving people apartments did not improve health or other life outcomes] you cited shows that. San Francisco has more permanent supportive housing units per capita than any other city, and we doubled spending on homelessness, but the homeless population rose 13%, even as it went down in the US. And so we doubled our spending and the problem got worse. But if you say that, you get attacked.”

  How did progressives, who claim to be evidence-based, ever get so committed to Housing First? “Malcolm Gladwell’s [2006 New Yorker article] “Million Dollar Murray,” really helped popularize this idea,” the person said. “But it was based on an anecdote of one person. It works for who it works for but is not scalable. [Governor] Gavin [Newsom] made a mistake [as San Francisco’s Mayor 2004-2011] which was that we stopped investing in shelter. But that’s because all the best minds were saying, ‘This is what’s going to work.’”

  One of the claims made defenders of the open drug scenes is that people who live in them are mostly locals who were priced out of their homes and apartments and decided to pitch a tent on the street. In San Fransicko, I cite a significant body of evidence to show that this is false, and that many people come to San Francisco from around the U.S. for the city’s unusually high cash welfare benefits, free housing, and tolerance of open drug scenes.

  The insider agreed. “People come here because they think they can. It’s bullshit that ‘Only 30 percent [of homeless] are from out of town.’ At least 20,000 homeless people come through town every year. Talk to the people on the street. There’s no way 70 percent of the homeless are from here. Ask them the name of their high school and they guess, ‘Washington? The one around the corner?’ But you can’t even talk about that without being called a fascist.” 

  

  The people living on the street suffer from serious addiction, this person said. “During the first point in time count [census of homeless population] in 2007, one-third had a disability, mental illness, or addiction, while last time, it was over two-thirds. The population fundamentally changed, whether from the drugs, or the time on the street. It doesn’t matter because a lot of the problems on the street are drugs-related. Neither San Francisco nor any other municipality can solve the housing policy without changing federal policy.”

  Life in the open drug scenes is brutal, this person confirmed. “Most homeless encampments are not communities but have paper-thin relationships based on their disease. It’s hard to have healthy relationships when you’re just trying to keep your head above water because you’re so dope dependent.”

  What San Francisco and other progressive cities are doing isn’t working. “People in those encampments have food brought to them, port-a-potties brought to them, and all they need to do is put drugs in their arm all day. They get really really sick and they die. Portugal didn’t make it so you can do whatever you want. The consequences of your action are treatment driven, but there are consequences. Here there are no consequences. And so we make it worse.”

  This person was harshly critical of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health for allowing drug overdoses to rise to over 700 per year. “They say, ‘It’s not our fault because it’s fentanyl.” But it’s only gotten worse.”

  This person stressed they were in favor of harm reduction policies like giving addicts clean needles in exchange for them giving back dirty ones, but not just giving out needles. “I’m all in favor of needle exchange, but not of needle distribution. Ask people to return the needles they’ve been given. There are people who don’t have it together enough. I get that. But when you tell people we’re going to give you whatever you want, to do whatever you want… Sleeping on a sidewalk is a crime. There are things you can’t do. You can’t shoot up on the street. The laws are there for a reason.”

  Why Progressives Create Homelessness

  So ⁦@SFPD⁩ just arrested ⁦@christinevans⁩ for interfering with their work of displacing folks in a large encampment under the freeway during a pandemic as Delta is spreading. I was talking to an unhoused pregnant woman when they threatened to arrest me too. pic.twitter.com/NBANKCWA0Y

  — Kelley Cutler (@NutCheese) July 27, 2021

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  Open drug scenes look like natural disasters, but they are the result of specific city policies. These policies including giving money, food, and drug paraphernalia to addicts to support their addiction. But even if progressives didn’t give people those things, many addicts would still live in open drug scenes. As such, the main reason “homelessness” is so much worse in progressive West Coast cities is because progressives hotly oppose efforts by cities to close the open drug scenes and move addicts into shelters and rehab.

  By blocking the closing of open drug scenes, which is referred to as “clearing an encampment,” people in need of help don’t get it. “The San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness recently [July 2021] protested an encampment clearing where a woman was pregnant,” the insider told me. “As soon as everybody left, the woman went into a shelter, after having been on the streets for three months. She went indoors. It’s like, ‘What are you fighting for? The right of this person to stay on private property and be pregnant?’”

  One of the questions I tried to answer in San Fransicko was when it was that street addicts started living in tents. I concluded that it started with the “Occupy Wall Street” protests in 2011, when progressive activists in San Francisco, Oakland, and other cities lived in tents in front of government buildings to protest capitalism. This person confirmed this account. “You’re right that the tents popped up after Occupy,” they said. “But it wasn’t just that the Occupy activists gave the homeless their tents. It was that the homeless saw well-heeled whites sleeping in tents. It got moralized.”

  The most influential homeless advocate in San Francisco, and perhaps the United States as a whole, is the head of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, Jennifer Friedenbach. Over the last three decades, Friedenbach has taken control over San Francisco’s homelessness budget and other policies. She blocks the closure of open drug scenes, calls people who disagree with her fascists and racists, and organizes protests at the homes of politicians.

  Time to house all San Franciscans, don’t you think? pic.twitter.com/PA5fFGivhN

  — Jennifer Friedenbach (@fbach4) May 18, 2021

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  A typical example of Friedenbach’s tactics could be seen in posters she promoted in May. The headline read, “See a tent? Just fucking leave it alone, thanks. Maybe instead of complaining about a homeless person’s only shelter from the elements, you could do something about the economic conditions that put them there in the first place?”

  The main reason San Francisco lacks sufficient homeless shelters is because Friedenbach and other Housing First advocates have long opposed them. They have demanded that money go to providing people with their own apartment units. The reason, Friedenbach explained to me, is that “if you ask unhoused people, they’re not screaming for shelter. They’re screaming for housing.”

  In the spring of 2021, Friedenbach published an op-ed opposing a proposal considered by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to create, within eighteen months, sufficient homeless shelters and outdoor “Safe Sleeping Sites” for all of the city’s unsheltered homeless. “One can simply take a look to New York City,” she wrote. “Their department spends about $1.3 billion dollars of its budget on providing shelter for their unhoused population while thousands remain on the street. . . . As a result, New York has a higher rate of homelessness than San Francisco.”

  But the claim was misleading. New York shelters the vast majority of its homeless, whereas San Francisco leaves the vast majority of its homeless unsheltered. “New York [City] has made the decision that everyone should have an exit from the street,” noted Rafael Mandelman, a San Francisco county supervisor. “San Francisco has consciously chosen not to make that commitment. And the conditions on New York’s streets versus San Francisco streets are somewhat reflective of what that means.”

  

  Friedenbach controls how San Francisco spends its astonishing $850 million annual budget. “Jenny built her power base by becoming a master of the budget’s “add back” process,” said the San Francisco insider. “The night before the budget is announced, it gets reviewed by the Board of Supervisors, but they’re trying to get out of there by midnight, and that’s when these ‘community asks.’ The board goes and trims stuff out of the mayor’s budget and does “add backs” of money for struggling nonprofits. Jenny has mastered that process. And so if you’re a nonprofit executive director, and you want money in the add back process, which everyone does, you have to go through Jenny.”

  This person said that Friedenbach also operates behind the scenes. “She controls fake front groups like the Homeless Service Providers’ Coalition and the Justice Budget Coalition,” said the insider. “She knows the issue well. A lot of people look to her.”

  But more importantly, Friedenbach, like many progressive defenders of open drug scenes, demonize the people who stand up to her. “They shut down the discussion,” the insider said. “Everybody is just like, ‘Police bad. Public health good.’ It’s Animal Farm. But the city’s homeless outreach team can’t do their jobs without the cops. That’s the stuff that shuts down any meaningful discussion.”

  Why do they do it? Radical anti-system ideology. “There’s a San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness hat which says, ‘Coalition on Homelessness: On The Frontlines of Class Warfare,’” said the insider. “They feel like they’re fighting class warfare. They tell people to not take shelter.”

  I documented in San Fransicko that Friedenbach and other homeless advocates are motivated in significant measure by their belief that capitalism, not addiction, is responsible for the suffering on the streets. After I appeared on Joe Rogan, a clinical psychologist who for two decades ran programs for homeless veterans at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center, which included homeless vets, emailed me.

  “I agree with all you say about the ‘homeless’ people who are actually mislabeled mentally ill and drug addicts,” wrote Dr. Mark Zaslav. “I like your comparison of the ‘ideology’ of people who “advocate” for the homeless to a religion gone haywire. But I wanted, as a psychologist, to add another point for your consideration.  This is the fact that this leftwing religion is based on split-off hatred and contempt for civilization itself.  When I attended substance abuse conferences in San Francisco run by community leaders, it became clear to me that these people had no understanding of mental health disorders like addiction – they regarded “homeless” addicts as heroes of some kind.  

  “Thus, each drug addict defecating on the streets in the Tenderloin was a massive middle finger to some imagined white male with a briefcase.  The premise of your solutions, which make so much sense, assume that adherents to the now reigning ideology want things solved.  They do not.  They want people inconvenienced by addicts – the homeless become quote literal scared cows who roam society reminding everyone of the sins of capitalism.

  “You mentioned Noam Chomsky.  These people are angry and full of hate.  They have tapped into a form of blindness among the voters of places like San Francisco or California itself – these are angry people endlessly telling themselves they are compassionate while projecting their hatred toward the ‘bourgeoise.’ I am afraid this does not end well. “

  The San Francisco homelessness insider agreed, and despaired over the religious fervor in which the people who work at the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, the San Francisco Public Health Department, and many elected members of the Board of Supervisors are gripped. “Maybe homelessness is part of capitalism and racism,” said this person. “I can’t solve that and neither can any nonprofit organization. I can’t stand seeing people suffering on the streets. What are we going to do right now?”

  .*  *  *

  Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Our research and writing depends on individuals like you. Please consider subscribing now so we can expand our work in the coming year

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 22:20

• The Most Crowded Hedge Fund Stocks Just Had Their Worst Month In History: Here's How To Make Money From Their Misery
  The Most Crowded Hedge Fund Stocks Just Had Their Worst Month In History: Here’s How To Make Money From Their Misery

  It was almost exactly a year ago when just weeks before the first of many epic short squeezes observed in a handful of meme stocks such as GME, AMC and so on, which would eventually consume the retail public with a daytrading, short-squeezing frenzy, that we reminded our readers that the single best alpha-generating strategy in this irreparably broken market is to go long the most shorted stocks (as this tweet from Nov 30, 2020 clearly states)…

  Once again, the best strategy for a broken, incoherent market is to go long the most shorted stocks: double digit alpha 6 of the past 7 yearshttps://t.co/GlV2aUYXlG pic.twitter.com/kOlXzxiCvH

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 1, 2020

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  … a strategy that had worked like clockwork virtually every year in the past decade (with just one exception), and which we summarized as follows: “Do the opposite of Wall Street consensus and retire in a few years.”

  Most shorted YTD = 3x S&P500

  Do the opposite of Wall Street consensus and retire in a few years pic.twitter.com/ouQ8Jc9NwI

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 4, 2020

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  Of course, while most of the US daytrading class is now in a furore over the “discovery” that most shorted stocks tend to outperform – to put it mildly – when a bunch of Gen-Z apes rams illiquid, heavily shorted names up the collective behind of hedge funds which “legally” collude during idea dinners to put on a basket of shorts, hence why stocks like GME can end up with a synthetic short that is higher than the entire float, none of this should be news to regular readers, as the theme of going long the most shorted names is one we first presented and discussed as far back as 2013:

  • Presenting The Best Trading Strategy In This Market: Buy The Most Hated Stocks, Short The Most Widely Held

  We then reiterated this strategy in 2014…

  • The Most Beloved, And Hated, Hedge Fund Stocks Are…

  … 2015…

  • Stocks Soar To Best Week In A Year On “Mother Of All Short Squeezes”
  • Presenting The Top 50 Hedge Fund Longs And Shorts

  … 2016…

  • After Three Years, This Remains The Best Trading Strategy

  … 2017

  • These Are The Top 50 Hedge Fund Long And Short Positions

  … 2019

  • These Are The 50 Most Popular Hedge Fund Longs And Shorts

  … 2020

  • Top Hedge Fund Longs Suffer Historic Crash As Top Shorts Outperform… And Much More Pain Is Coming

  And so on.

  It took banks about 6 years after our first post on this matter to admit we were right and that going long “the most shorteds” is not only the most profitable strategy but also the most successful one in the past decade; in Aug 2019 Bank of America showed that “buying the 10 most underweight stocks and selling the 10 most overweight stocks by active funds has generated alpha in the past years with the exception of 2017″...

  

  … as we laid out in Going Against The Wall Street Crowd Has Been The Most Profitable Strategy.

  What is the point of all this?

  Well, the point is that almost ten years after we first pointed out this phenomenal trade which almost literally prints money with the same regularity as the Fed, only this one actually requires some effort, nobody has learned a thing.

  As we first observed last week in “Most Popular Hedge Fund Stocks Suffer Record Stretch Of Underperformance” the hedge fund hotel that is Goldman’s hedge fund VIP basket of 50 most widely held HF stocks, has suffered the biggest 6 month drop on record at a time when nothing could go right for hedge funds.

  

  Then over the weekend, we observed that even before last week’s historic Black Red Friday collapse. which saw the biggest post-Thanksgiving drop on record, hedge funds had a terrible week because according to Goldman prime, the GS Equity Fundamental L/S Performance Estimate fell -1.57% between 11/19 and 11/25, driven by alpha of -1.12% which was “the worst alpha drawdown in nearly six months” and beta of -0.45% (from market exposure and market sensitivity combined).

  

  And then, the cherry on top was Friday’s meltup in a handful of pharma stocks like Moderna and Pfizer, which exploded higher as everything else was crashing, steamrolling hedge funds even more for one simple reason: Moderna was the third largest short in the hedge fund world according to Goldman.

  

  Which brings us to the punchline: according to Morgan Stanley’s Quantitative Derivatives Strategy team, “The MS Crowded Long basket MSXXCRWD is down 13% vs. the S&P 500 over the last month — the worst rolling one-month relative performance on record (just edging out March 2020).“

  

  As QDS puts it “Think about that: WORSE than March 2020…. and again, this doesn’t even embed Friday’s move.”

  There are several ways to interpret this stunning observation – none of them flattering for a hedge fund community which long ago forgot how to actually hedge – but perhaps the simple and most robust explanation is to keep doing what we said back in 2013 remains the most profitable strategy –  buy the most shorted names and go short the most popular names, a strategy which will keep on giving as long as the market remains as broken as it is today.

  And just to help readers off on their mission to profit from a terminally broken market – because after all, everyone else does it – here again is a list of the 50 most popular hedge funds longs…

  

  … and the 50 biggest hedge fund shorts.

  

  And as an added bonus stepping aside from the hedge fund universe, here are the 50 most shorted names, i.e., those companies with a $1BN+ market cap that have the highest short interest outstanding as a percentage of market cap. Going long an equal-weighted basket of these names has historically generated returns of over 20% every single year.

  

  The full reports from both Morgan Stanley and Goldman are available to pro subscribers in the usual place.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 22:00

• In Low Key Move, Singapore’s Central Bank Adds 26 Tonnes To Its Gold Reserves
  In Low Key Move, Singapore’s Central Bank Adds 26 Tonnes To Its Gold Reserves

  Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

  It has just come to light that Singapore’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), added 26.35 tonnes of gold to its official monetary gold reserves over a 2 month period between May and June this year, in the process boosting its strategic gold holdings by 20% to a claimed 153.76 tonnes.

  This addition to the monetary gold holdings of the Monetary Authority of Singapore was first pointed out by the World Gold Council’s Krishan Gopaul in a 25 November tweet, following an update to Singapore’s gold holdings appearing in the IMF’s International Financial Statistics (IFS) database, a source which World Gold Council uses to keep track of central bank and sovereign gold holdings.

  Here’s something interesting in the latest IMF stats: The Monetary Authority of Singapore added 26t of #gold to its reserves over May and June 2021. This is its first gold purchase since at least 2000, and another instance of a developed market CB buying (along with Ireland). pic.twitter.com/UeHmAbxRt9

  — Krishan Gopaul (@KrishanGopaul) November 25, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  May and June: 26.35 tonnes added

  While it’s unclear why changes to Singapore’s monetary gold holdings from May and June only made it on to the IFS database in recent days, looking more closely, the Monetary Authority of Singapore did ‘reflect’ the May and June gold purchases at the end of July and August, respectively, via updates to the MAS’ monthly “International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity” report, but did not announce or mention the additions specifically.

  Before looking at how this substantial gold purchase by Singapore went unnoticed, here are the raw numbers from the MAS site itself. Up until the end of April 2021, Singapore’s central bank (MAS) had been reporting total gold holdings of 4,096,439 fine troy ounces, or 127.42 tonnes, a figure which had not changed since at least 2002 (which is as far back as World Gold Council records go).

  During May 2021, MAS reports that it added 527,201 ozs (16.4 tonnes) of gold, taking it’s gold holdings as of end of May to 4,623,640 ozs (143.81 tonnes).

  During June 2021, MAS reports that it added a further 319,801 ozs (9.95 tonnes) of gold, which increased MAS’ gold holdings as of end of June to 4,943,441 ozs (153.76 tonnes).

  This means that over the two months May and June 2021 inclusive, MAS purchased 847,002 fine troy ounces of gold (26.35 tonnes), and in doing so increased it’s gold holdings by 20.67%, and at the same time rising from 30^th to 28^th place in the world gold holding rankings.\

  

  Quietly and Discreetly

  Each month, the World Gold Council (WGC) updates it’s World Official Gold Holdings spreadsheet (xls) in which it ranks sovereign gold holders largest to smallest based on how many tonnes of monetary gold each country holds. Looking at the latest version of this report (November), it lists Singapore in 30^th position with 127.4 tonnes ‘as of August 2021’, and this spreadsheet has not yet been updated (at time of writing) to reflect the 26 tonnes of gold purchased by Singapore in May and June.

  The WGC ranking methodology states that: “This table was updated in November 2021 and reports data available at that time. Data are taken from the International Monetary Fund’s International Financial Statistics (IFS), November 2021 edition, and other sources where applicable. IFS data are two months in arrears, so holdings are as of September 2021 for most countries, August 2021 or earlier for late reporters”.

  IMF IFS data will only get updated if and when an individual country informs the IMF of a change to that country’s gold holdings. It appears then that the World Gold Council’s data for Singapore’s gold holdings is based exclusively on the IMF IFS data, and that this IFS data has for some reason only in recent days been updated to reflect Singapore’s gold purchases, which means that for some reason Singapore has only very recently informed the IMF of it’s May-June gold buying.

  For verification, I ran a data query in the IMF IFS database for search criteria Singapore, for each month of 2021, with the data indicator of “International Reserves and Liquidity, Reserves, Official Reserve Assets, Gold (Including Gold Deposits and, If Appropriate, Gold Swapped), Volume in Millions of Fine Troy Ounces, Fine Troy Ounces”.

  This data query output the following:

  

  From the IFS data, you can see that Singapore’s (MAS) gold holdings remained unchanged at 4.1 million ozs until the end of April 2021, then increased to 4.62 mn ozs at the end of May, and then increased again to 4.94 mn ozs at the end of June, after which MAS gold reserves remained unchanged.

  MAS Monthly International Reserves report

  However, knowing now that MAS purchased gold during May and June, I went back and checked on the actual MAS monthly ‘International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity’ reports on the MA website.

  The MAS ‘International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity ‘ report for April 2021, which was published on 30 June 2021, shows the Singaporean central bank reporting a total of 4,096,439 fine troy ounces (or 127.42 tonnes). See Item 4 “Gold (including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped)”.  

  The same report for May 2021, which was published on 30 July 2021, then shows that the volume of gold held by MAS at the end of May was 4,623,640 fine troy ounces, which was 16.4 tonnes more than at the end of April.

  The report for June 2021, published on 31 August 2021, shows that as of end of June MAS held  4,943,441 fine troy ounces of gold, a 9.95 tonne increase over May, and a combined May-June increase of 26.35 tonnes.

  Just for completeness, the report for July 2021, published on 30 September, shows that gold holdings then remained constant at 4,943,441 ozs, i.e. there were no further gold purchases beyond June.

  

  Despite the two-month lag in reporting, these reports show that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) did report increases in gold holdings on 30 July and again on 31 August, but for whatever reason, no one noticed, or else those who noticed it did not publicise it. There is a slight chance that MAS has recently altered it’s “International Reserves” reports since May to retrospectively show these gold purchases, but it would seem quite absurd to do so, even in the secretive world of central bank gold reporting.

  Besides, an Internet Archive of the preliminary MAS “International Reserves” report for end of August (published end of September) and archived on the Wayback Machine on 6 October, shows that even then (at the end of September) MAS was, on it’s website, reporting it’s latest gold holdings of 4,943,441 ozs.

  The Secretive World of Central Bank Gold

  So overall, it seems to be a case of no one noticing the updated gold holdings data in the MAS monthly “International Reserves” reports since the end of July, and at the same time, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) not highlighting it’s gold purchases to either the gold market or the financial press, i.e. there was no press release, no other form of announcement, nor even any comment on either the MAS website or from central bank officials. In contrast, central banks, such as Poland, have made many public statements about their gold buying, and even signal their gold buying in advance.

  For a central bank which actively publishes reams of publications and reports on all sorts of topics related to Singapore’s financial sector and markets and it’s international financial position, this omission about Singapore’s sizeable gold purchases could be considered quite strange, but then again, given that we are dealing with the secretive world of gold and central banks, maybe it’s not so strange.

  In addition, MAS is famous for it’s obsession with maintaining and controlling the exchange rate of the Singaporean dollar (versus a basket of currencies), so perhaps MAS prefers not to draw attention to the amount of gold in it’s international reserves as this might encourage FX markets to view the gold purchase as a move that strengthens Singapore’s reserve position and hence could put upward pressure on it’s exchange rate.

  

  From Washington to Switzerland 

  In 1968, Singapore’s finance minister Dr Goh Keng Swee and senior adviser Ngiam Tong Dow were responsible for securing Singapore’s first gold reserves when they negotiated with South Africa’s finance minister Nicolaas Diederichts to purchase 100 tonnes of gold from the South Africans at $40 per ounce while attending a World Bank meeting in Washington D.C.

  Realising that the Bretton Woods system would soon collapse, and on advice from Ngiam Tong Dow, Dr Goh decided “In that case, we had better go and buy gold from the South Africans.”  

  Given that there was an embargo on South Africa, intriguing the gold deal was conducted in Dr Goh’s hotel room in Washington D.C. and they turned up the TV to full volume to counter possible listening devices. According to Ngiam Tong Dow, when Diederichts agreed, he said “OK, you send your man to Switzerland, we’ll deliver the gold to you in Switzerland, and you pay us in Switzerland.” Diederichts then took out a $1 bill, ripped in in two halves, kept one half, and gave the other half to Ngiam Tong Dow saying ‘You keep this. I will keep the other half, and my man will meet you in Switzerland.” And just like that, 100 tonnes of gold changed hands. It may sound like a James Bond storyline, but this story is actually factual.       

  A few months later the deal was finalised when Ngiam Tong Dow and Singaporean banker Wee Cho Yaw flew into Switzerland and went to the offices of the Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) where they met the Swiss banker representing the South Africans. Upon handing him the one half of the dollar bill, and seeing that the serial numbers matched, the Swiss banker said “OK, your identity has been established”. And the rest, as they say, is history.

  Sometime subsequent to 1968 (but before 2002) Singapore added to its gold reserves to bring them up to the 127.4 tonnes level, and now yet again, Singapore has added another 26.35 tonnes during May and June 2021.

  

  While the negotiation of this latest gold purchase may not have been as intriguing and James Bond-esque as Singapore’s 1968 gold purchase, in the world of central bank gold markets anything is possible, and we could well imagine MAS officials in exotic Swiss locations or Washington DC hotels.

  But like their 1968 compatriots who were quiet and discreet in their negotiations, so yet again Singapore’s central bankers have added a sizeable tonnage to Singapore’s monetary gold reserves, so discreetly, that no one, until now, even noticed. And that’s the way the secretive central bankers like it.

  Yet with this gold purchase, Singapore’s central bankers are now signaling that after years on the sidelines, they feel compelled at this time to come back to the gold market as buyers.  While yet not covered by mainstream financial media, this is a major move by one of the world’s most savvy and discreet central banks.

  This article was originally published on the BullionStar website under the same title “In low key move, Singapore’s central bank adds 26 tonnes to its gold reserves“. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 21:40

• 27 More Russian Diplomats Expelled From US – Kremlin Vows Retaliation
  27 More Russian Diplomats Expelled From US – Kremlin Vows Retaliation

  The United States is preparing to expel over two dozen more Russian diplomats by January, as part of  ongoing tit-for-tat punitive efforts which previously saw the Russian government forbit its citizens from serving as local staff for the US Embassy in Russia, greatly reducing its ability to process visas and other actions in a timely manner.

  The Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov revealed over the weekend in an interview that “our diplomats are being expelled” and detailed that 27 diplomats and their families are due to be expelled from American soil.

  “A large group of my comrades, 27 people with families, will leave us on January 30,” Antonov described according to Reuters. He said the embassy and consulates are now “facing a serious staff shortage.”

  

  This follows two dozen Russian diplomats being told to leave in September, with the US refusing to renew their visas as is the normative practice. When that prior event happened, Amb. Antonov complained, “It has gotten to the point where the U.S. authorities cancel valid visas of spouses and children of our staff with no reasons provided. The widespread delays in renewing expired visas are also aimed at squeezing Russian diplomatic workers out of the country.”

  The State Department at the same time has downplayed that the moves have been retaliatory, instead framing it as but the result of an expired, unrenewed visa issue.

  On Monday Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov lashed out at Washington. He was cited in Russian media sources as demanding the US “must stop”…

  “We will definitely respond. We have already warned the US side that in order to prevent a further decline of personnel numbers here we cannot help but to respond. They must stop,” Ryabkov said.

  And he described further, according to Sputnik that “the matter of issuing visas for Russian diplomats travelling to the US remains acute. He slammed Washington for perpetuating the practice of intentionally separating the families of diplomats by denying some of them visas.”

  The United States will expel at least 54 more Russian diplomats next year, Russia’s ambassador to Washington said https://t.co/XubRPXaFpg

  — The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) November 29, 2021

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  In October Congressional hawks actually proposed an even bigger wave of expulsions, which would damage relations to the point of potentially breaking US-Russia communications altogether.

  Citing the refusal of Moscow to in a timely manner issue more visas for American employees of the Moscow embassy, leading Senators had called for the US banning as many as 300 Russian diplomatic staff from the US. Given what’s looking to be multiple waves of expulsions, it’s possible that high number could eventually be reached at this rate.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 21:20

• Teacher Unions, Parents Gird For 2022 Battles
  Teacher Unions, Parents Gird For 2022 Battles

  Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics.com,

  Over the last year, school board meetings have become ground zero for the country’s culture wars as irate parents have showed up in droves to decry school COVID closures, mask mandates, and critical race theory, as well as transgender policies.

  

  After political analysts credited a parental uprising with helping Republican political newcomer Glenn Youngkin capture the Virginia governorship this month, these fights show no sign of easing. Both major political parties are already gearing up for next year’s midterm elections with Republicans sensing an advantage and Democrats digging in to defend beleaguered school boards, teacher unions, and the progressive policies they hold dear.

  This week, conservative parents and their supporters are expressing new outrage over news that the FBI is placing “threat tags” on individuals accused of harassing or trying to intimidate school board members and teachers. For months, disgruntled parents have angrily targeted school board trustees for recalls across the nation, regularly denouncing union control of the schools as the crux of the problem. Recall attempts against school board trustees have tripled in 2021, targeting at least 216 officials, according to Ballotpedia.

  But in at least one school district in Southern California, parents are warning their like-minded revolutionaries across the nation to be careful what they wish for and to get ready for a tough fight ahead. After gaining majority control of the local school board, they found themselves on the other side of the firing line with teacher unions vigorously targeting their trustee allies.

  A local affiliate of the California Teachers Association has spent months this year trying to wrest back control of the school board after some of its trustees successfully fought alongside parents to reopen schools earlier this year. The union’s actions, while flying below the national radar, were unusually aggressive. 

  They included spending up to $60,000 in union funds on a private firm to collect recall signatures against one trustee; successfully recalling the only African American on the board; and hiring a private investigator to follow the school board president home from meetings in an effort to challenge her residency within the district.

  Why is the union so focused on regaining control of this particular school board? For local parents, it’s no mystery. The answer is the ripple effect of pandemic politics.

  Frustrated by coronavirus lockdowns, a group of parents in North County San Diego founded an association and sued the state to overturn pandemic rules limiting the number of days of in-person learning or completely blocking some schools from reopening at all. In mid-March, San Diego Superior Court Judge Cynthia Freeland ruled in the association’s favor, prohibiting the state from enforcing its restrictions, which she agreed were “arbitrary,” interfered with school districts’ reopening plans for in-person instruction and denied children’s “fundamental right to basic education equality.”

  Moreover, in the absence of a contrary ruling by a higher court, the judge’s decision applied to the entire state, sending a clear message to the CTA (the biggest statewide union) and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration that their guidelines weren’t mandates and they must allow school districts to reopen more rapidly.

  The San Dieguito Union High School District, a high-performing area with 13,000 students and 600 teachers, had scheduled school re-openings for January 2021 but reversed course when the union sued in December to block that action.

  School board Trustee Michael Allman, who was elected to the board last fall, was the lone dissenting vote. Allman’s outspoken opposition won strong support from local parents organizing on a Facebook forum, a group that quickly grew to more than 2,000 supporters. Other board members, including President Maureen “Mo” Muir, had also started pushing back against COVID school closures.

  The San Dieguito Faculty Association, the local CTA affiliate, launched a recall campaign against Allman just five months into his four-year term. The union accused Allman, a former energy company executive, of violating the district’s code of conduct, charges he denies and that he believes arose from a public war of words over schools’ pandemic policies taking place on social media sites.

  The SDFA a few months ago gave itself permission to spend up to $60,000 hiring a private firm to gather 5,000 signatures needed to recall Allman. At least $14,500 of that came directly from the CTA. Yet, even with the private help, the union recently gave up and the recall failed to qualify.

  Allman had fought back, spending nearly all of his free time going door to door defending himself. He said he heard from supporters that recall signature gatherers were falsely accusing him of being under criminal investigation, among other “outlandish lies,” so he sent a cease-and-desist letter to SDFA President Duncan Brown. He says he’s still considering filing a defamation suit.

  “It’s hard to beat the unions. I prevailed because I have the support of parents who are speaking up like never before,” Allman said in an interview.

  “Put yourself in my shoes. Teachers are spreading lies about me in the community, so I went door-to-door with parents to say, ‘Hey, I’m a good guy, and I support parents.’”

  He says he had a roughly 50% conversion rate of area residents who said they had already signed the recall petition. (State rules allow for the rescinding of signatures.)

  But the SDFA, again with significant CTA help, successfully forced a special election for another seat on the school board, which was held by Ty Hume, the only African American member of the all-white panel. Hume, a businessman and openly declared independent, had been appointed after a union-backed trustee resigned earlier this year. Hume’s appointment gave non-union-aligned members a three-to-two majority on the board.

  The SDFA took issue with Hume’s appointment, arguing that voters should have had a say in his election. His opponents produced the necessary signatures to rescind the appointment and call a special election, costing the district up to $500,000 to hold. But the gambit worked: Hume was defeated by union-backed candidate Julie Bronstein, who out-fundraised him with donations from the SDFA, another public employee union, as well as the local congressman, Rep. Scott Peters.

  In a more bizarre twist, the same union hired a private investigator to follow Mo Muir home to see whether she was in fact living in the district she represented, as required by law. The private eye determined that the board president was renting out her home, which was up for sale, leading the local teacher union president to file a complaint with the district attorney. But Muir explained that she was spending time at the home of her elderly mother-in-law in Lake Tahoe during the height of the pandemic lockdowns. She sold her home but rented another within the district boundaries. The district attorney has yet to take any action; a spokeswoman said the office has a policy of declining to say whether it’s involved in an investigation.

  Brown declined an RCP interview request but provided a lengthy written statement, arguing that “democracy prevailed” because the union successfully ousted Hume, whom the board had appointed, and allowed residents to elect Bronstein, who won with nearly 60% of the vote.

  “While our efforts to recall Michael Allman did not result in activating a special election … we have been successful in highlighting Allman’s abuses of office to the broader community,” Brown said. He noted that the effort collected more than 4,000 signatures while thousands of other district residents “have been made aware of the dysfunction of our school board majority.”

  Brown didn’t respond to an RCP request to outline Allman’s “abuses of office” and whether he or anyone else in the union is responsible for the false information Allman says was circulating about him.  “SDFA will continue to stand for our students, our educators and our community,” he said.

  Area parents’ groups privately warn of a greater union backlash to come if reform groups successfully recall and replace school board trustees in large numbers across the country.

  Yet this is precisely what conservative groups are pledging to do nationally, although competing with the unions’ massive organization and deep pockets is a tall order for the newly energized patchwork of parents’ groups.

  A national group called 1776 Action, which promotes teaching children a traditional appreciation of America’s founding, is asking candidates and elected officials to sign a pledge calling for the restoration of an “honest, patriotic education.” The group is a conservative response to the New York Times’ 1619 project, which frames all of U.S. history through the prism of slavery.

  “2021 is really going to sort of be seen as kind of a canary in the coal mine of what’s coming down the pike next year and into the future,” Adam Waldeck, the group’s president, recently told the Associated Press.

  “This will be the year that I think primarily parents stand up and say, ‘You know, we have a voice, too.’ And I think it’s going to be overwhelming.”

  Kimberly Fletcher, the president and founder of Moms for America, another group organized to fight for school reopenings and against CRT and other liberal education policies, recently protested at the headquarters of the National School Boards Association in Alexandria, Va. Her organization, along with numerous other voices on the right, denounced a letter the NSBA sent to the Biden administration urging it to treat complaints aimed at school boards and teachers as possible acts of “domestic terrorism.” After a nationwide uproar, the group rescinded the letter and apologized to its members.

  Fletcher says she views the outsized role fed up parents played in the Virginia governor’s race as a “precursor of what’s to come” in the 2022 midterms.

  “I have been saying for years that the moment that moms find out what’s going on behind closed doors in our schools, there’s going to be a national revolt, and that’s exactly what’s going on,” she said. “We’re just getting started.”  

  In recent months, she said several members of her group have been running for spots on school boards and winning in places such as Texas and Idaho, as well as the swing states of Pennsylvania and Colorado.

  The moms group is providing training sessions for prospective board candidates and for newly elected trustees, which, Fletcher argued, is far more powerful than trying to compete dollar-to-dollar with unions.

  “Here’s the beauty of it — when you’re fighting for parents’ rights, you don’t need a lot of money to win,” she argued. “It’s a matter of principle.”

  Still, the well-oiled teacher union machine can be formidable, especially in more liberal areas of the country. While angry parents helped fuel Youngkin’s win in purple Virginia on Nov. 2, the same day the entire Denver school board flipped from trustees supported by education reform organizations to union-backed candidates.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 21:00

• China Has No Plans To Invite U.S. Politicians To Olympic Games 
  China Has No Plans To Invite U.S. Politicians To Olympic Games 

  Last week WaPo cited multiple officials within the Biden administration who said President Biden would soon declare a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Before the White House could even announce a formal boycott for U.S. leaders – including Congressional members, Communist Party-backed Global Times said Monday that Beijing has no intentions to ask U.S. politicians to attend the Games. 

  Global Times indicated that Beijing has “no plans to invite U.S. and Western politicians” who hype the “boycott” of the Winter Games. 

  

  Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Monday at a regular briefing in Beijing that a White House decision to block the U.S. president and other U.S. government officials from the Winter Olympics could be announced shortly. He said the Games are “a gathering of winter sports lovers and athletes from around the world, not a stage for political posturing and manipulation.”

  “The U.S. and a handful of countries make an issue of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games and link their officials’ attendance with so-called human rights issues,” Wenbin said. “This is, in essence, a smear campaign in the name of defending human rights.”

  At the center of the controversy are Biden and other Western politicians who criticize Beijing’s handling of Muslim minorities in its far western region of Xinjiang. Secretary Jen Psaki recently said the U.S. had “serious concerns about the human rights abuses we’ve seen in Xinjiang.”

  Global Times said China plans a “simple, safe and splendid” Olympic Games without anti-China politicians. It noted that the Games might be more impressive without these politicians who do nothing more than make trouble. 

  Dick Pound, the longest-serving member of the International Olympic Committee, told CBC News that countries should resist calls to boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics because it would hurt athletes. 

  Despite global calls for boycotting the Games, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said he was attending the sporting event. 

  While Biden and other Western politicians stand against China’s human rights record, Beijing is thankful these politicals aren’t showing up to create controversy. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 20:40

• The Hidden Victims Of Biden's Border Crisis
  The Hidden Victims Of Biden’s Border Crisis

  Authored by Callista Gingrich via The Epoch Times,

  President Joe Biden’s immigration policies have led to chaos at the southern border, fueling a national security and humanitarian crisis. The blatant disregard for the rule of law by the Biden administration will have serious long-term consequences that will affect future generations of Americans.

  

  On Sept. 27, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration issued its first Public Safety Alert in six years. The warning alerted Americans to the “sharp increase in fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine.”

  According to the DEA’s alert, the availability and lethality of these counterfeit pills have significantly increased. Such pills are produced by criminal drug networks and designed to resemble legitimate opioid or stimulant medications, such as Oxycontin, Xanax, and Adderall. Unknown quantities of fentanyl and methamphetamine are known to be pressed into these counterfeit pills, making them dangerous for users.

  The synthetic opioid that is most often identified in counterfeit pills is fentanyl, which is the primary cause of the dramatic increase in overdose deaths in the United States.

  Fentanyl is a lab-manufactured drug used to treat pain that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. According to the DEA, just 2.2 pounds of fentanyl could potentially cause the deaths of 500,000 people. A lethal dose of fentanyl is just two milligrams, an amount so minuscule that it can fit on a pencil tip.

  Although China is the primary source for fentanyl precursors, counterfeit pills most often come to the United States from Mexico after being pressed by Mexican cartels. Kyle W. Williamson, the former head of the DEA’s El Paso division, said, “It’s the worst it’s ever been. The amount of methamphetamine and fentanyl coming in right now is unprecedented.”

  In the first nine months of 2021, more than 9.5 million fake pills have been confiscated. This figure is higher than the total number of counterfeit pills that were seized in 2019 and 2020 combined. Moreover, out of all of the pills which are laced with fentanyl, two out of five have been found to contain a potentially lethal dose of the drug.

  When users ingest one of these counterfeit pills without knowing what they contain, it is like playing a game of Russian roulette that can lead to death within minutes.

  On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that during a 12-month period ending in April, overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 for the first time. Sixty-four percent of these deaths were caused by synthetic opioids, namely, fentanyl. The majority of these deaths were attributed to 25-55 year olds. Young Americans, however, were also put at risk.

  Counterfeit pills can be purchased through social media and other e-commerce platforms, which means that young people with smartphones can easily acquire them without their parents’ knowledge and without realizing the dangers.

  According to the most recent data from National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2019, more than one in six adolescents (4.3 million) between the ages of 12 and 17 used illicit drugs. More than 560,000 adolescents misused opioids and, nearly 245,000 adolescents misused prescription pain relievers for the first time in their lives.

  When teenagers purchase counterfeit pills, they are often unaware of how much fentanyl the pills contain. The cartels have little concern for the safety of their victims, as they have figured out that the addition of fentanyl to counterfeit pills is a way to ensure their customers remain addicted to illicit drugs.

  Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp, in partnership with the Fentanyl Overdose Response Team, is leading the charge to save lives from falling victim to these dangerous drugs.

  Education is a key component of Smittcamp’s strategy. As she said in the documentary, “Killer High,” “There is such a high volume of this substance that we cannot police or prosecute our way out of this crisis—we have to educate people. The more people who know how lethal this drug is, the more lives we can save.”

  We must do more at the national level to educate Americans about the devastating effects of fentanyl and methamphetamine. Unless we stop the flow of these deadly drugs into the United States and provide law enforcement and first responders with the necessary tools and resources to combat this crisis, young lives will continue to be tragically lost.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 20:20

• US Natgas Prices Collapse 12% On Warmer Weather Trends 
  US Natgas Prices Collapse 12% On Warmer Weather Trends 

  U.S. Natural gas futures crashed as much as 12% on new weather models that forecast above-average temperatures for the U.S.-Lower 48 through the first half of December. 

  Contracts for January delivery plunged 11% as of 1145 ET to $4.860 per million British thermal unit on the CME. Prices have slipped 25% from seven-year highs (at around $6.50) as traders reassess U.S. weather and the energy crisis in Europe and Asia. 

  

  “Late-autumn cold in Europe and Asia has sparked fears that global gas shortages will worsen as nations struggle to refill stockpiles. But so far, there’s little sign of a similar situation developing in the U.S., even as shale producers keep a lid on output and the country’s exports of liquefied natural gas surge to a record,” Bloomberg said. 

  Even though it’s late November, traders closely watch the widow-maker spread between Henry Hub’s March and April contracts. The spread has collapsed in the past few months, which implies milder-than-usual weather. 

  

  U.S.-Lower 48 average temperatures will be well above a 30-year trend line for the first half of December.

  

  Warmer temperatures across the U.S. mean heating demand will diminish. 

  

  Mild weather will pressure natural gas prices lower until the next update suggests otherwise. This is excellent news for U.S. consumers who are already battling near-record energy, food, and shelter costs. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 20:00

• Sens. Cruz, Paul Blast "Astounding Authoritarian" Fauci For "I Am Science" Claim
  Sens. Cruz, Paul Blast “Astounding Authoritarian” Fauci For “I Am Science” Claim

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Responding to Anthony Fauci again declaring that he represents science, Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul blasted the “hubris” of ” an unelected technocrat,” warning that he has “distorted science” in order to exert “authoritarian control.”

  

  Fauci appeared on CBS News’ Face The Nation, and declared that “Anybody who spins lies and threatens and all that theater that goes on with some of the investigations and the congressional committees and the Rand Pauls and all that other nonsense, that’s noise.”

  He further claimed “if you’re attacking me, you’re really attacking science,” adding “I mean, everybody knows that.”

  It isn’t the first time that Fauci has essentially declared that he IS science.

  Responding directly to Cruz suggesting Fauci needs to be prosecuted, the latter proclaimed “I have to laugh at that. I should be prosecuted? What happened on Jan. 6, senator?”

  Real “I am the senate” vibes here. pic.twitter.com/4Y23ROOYKz

  — Jonathan Thiebaud (@Jtbaud249) November 28, 2021

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  Both Cruz and Paul quickly responded:

  The absolute hubris of someone claiming THEY represent science. It’s astounding and alarming that a public health bureaucrat would even think to claim such a thing, especially one who has worked so hard to ignore the science of natural immunity. https://t.co/rcDezphVRR

  — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) November 28, 2021

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  Fauci is an unelected technocrat who has distorted science and facts in order to exercise authoritarian control over millions of Americans.

  He lives in a liberal world where his smug “I REPRESENT science” attitude is praised.

  Here are the facts:

  — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 28, 2021

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  Sen. Cruz went on to explain the facts…

  (1) On May 11, Fauci testified before a Senate Committee that “the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

  (2) On October 20, NIH wrote they funded an experiment at the Wuhan lab testing if “spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model.” That is gain of function research.

  (3) Fauci’s statement and the NIH’s October 20 letter cannot both be true. The statements are directly contradictory.

  (4) 18 USC 1001 makes it felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison, to lie to Congress.

  No amount of ad hominem insults parroting Democrat talking points will get Fauci out of this contradiction.

  Fauci either needs to address the substance – in detail, with specific factual corroboration – or DOJ should consider prosecuting him for making false statements to Congress.

  Others also weighed in on Fauci’s emperor vibes, with journalist Jeryl Bier noting “This is not helpful in any way. This is almost word for word something a cult leader would say. This persuades no one not already in his corner.”

  “They’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous.” – Fauci

  This is not helpful in any way. This is almost word for word something a cult leader would say. This persuades no one not already in his corner. https://t.co/2VHY1T7C1k

  — Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 28, 2021

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  Look, you don’t have to be some Fauci conspiracy theorist to recognize that Fauci’s utility as a trusted public health official has long since expired, and he tends to be a net negative when it comes to clarity and trust.

  — Alicia Smith (@Alicia_Smith19) November 28, 2021

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  Now I want to know what Dr Fauci thinks happened on January 6th that Senator Cruz should be prosecuted for.

  Genuinely don’t understand the strategy of continuing to have him on Sunday shows almost every week — the audience he can influence only continues to shrink. https://t.co/A2pvzEp1lM

  — Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) November 28, 2021

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  An appallingly bad thing for someone in his position to be saying. Not a shred of humility about any of the things he got wrong, had to waffle on, or later took back or equivocated. Instead goes all Fauci XIV and says “la science c’est moi.” Yikes. https://t.co/tT9AU9MIuR

  — Noam Blum (@neontaster) November 28, 2021

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  Is Dr. Fauci under the impression that nobody is being prosecuted for Jan. 6? Or is he saying Ted Cruz should be prosecuted for speech & debate on the Senate floor? https://t.co/N1NxfTCDZ2

  — Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) November 28, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 19:44

• Will 2022 Midterms Be The Next Great Crisis Backlash?
  Will 2022 Midterms Be The Next Great Crisis Backlash?

  Authored by Andrew Busch via RealClearPolitics.com,

  At least twice in U.S. history, big political shakeups occurred in midterm elections that served as endpoints to periods of crisis, privation, and extraordinary government expansion and regimentation.

  

  The first was in November 1918. That election was held in the midst of the Spanish flu pandemic and just days before the armistice was signed ending World War I. The Allied breakthrough in France was well advanced and the handwriting was on the wall for the kaiser’s forces.

  Since entering the war in April 1917, Americans had endured extreme regimentation under the auspices of Woodrow Wilson’s “war socialism.” Rationing of consumer items was coupled with unprecedented government control over basic features of economic life, including a federal takeover of the nation’s railroads. These economic controls were combined with stringent political and social controls. With Wilson’s support, Congress passed the Sedition Act and the Espionage Act, clamping down (among other things) on publication or dissemination of arguments critical of the war effort or otherwise detrimental to national morale. Hundreds were imprisoned, including the Socialist Party’s perennial presidential candidate, Eugene Debs, who had urged young men not to comply with the draft. Spurred by war propaganda and encouraged by the administration, some exuberant patriots persecuted German Americans.

  Campaigning in 1918 was curtailed due to the Spanish flu, as was turnout on Election Day. Nevertheless, Republicans, including former President Theodore Roosevelt, campaigned vigorously as skeptics of Wilson’s Fourteen Points and critics of his war measures.  Republican candidates around the country demanded the end of wartime controls and regimentation. In 1920, Warren G. Harding would win the presidency on the promise of “A return to normalcy,” but it was Republicans in 1918 who first tested that theme, as they promised “a speedy victory and a return to normal conditions.”

  In the end, Republicans gained 25 seats in the House and five in the Senate, enough to give them majorities in both chambers for the first time since 1910. Aided by the end of the war, they used those majorities to force Wilson to release his grip on the economy. In short order, the 66th Congress repealed over 60 wartime laws.          

  ‘Had Enough?’

  A comparable case came at the end of the Second World War. Franklin Roosevelt refrained from some of Wilson’s more extreme steps, such as takeover of the railroads. Nevertheless, FDR copied much of Wilson’s war socialism. The federal government rationed food and a wide range of consumer goods, converting much of the economy to wartime production. Bureaucracies such as the Office of War Mobilization, Office of Price Administration, National War Labor Board, and Supply and Priorities Allocation Board exerted economic control. Civil liberties again suffered, with censorship, internment of Japanese Americans, and Smith Act prosecution of the leaders of the German American Bund. In both world wars (as in the Cold War later), it was a reasonable question how far the Constitution should be stretched to defend the United States against enemies who would destroy constitutional liberty entirely if they could – but there was no question that it was stretched.

  Although fighting ended in 1945, President Harry Truman had not yet issued a proclamation formally ending the state of war when the 1946 campaign got underway. Rationing of items such as meat, as well as wage and price controls, remained in place, to the growing anger of Americans on the home front. The war was over, and many asked why they were still subject to these measures.

  Republicans, out of power since the early years of the Great Depression, sought to capitalize on the discontent. Using a slogan of “Had Enough?,” they hammered Democrats and the Truman administration for economic privation and for holding on to extraordinary powers even after the crisis had passed. It was time, they implied – though without using the phrase – to return to normalcy. Three weeks before Election Day, Truman decontrolled meat in a bid to stave off electoral disaster; still, at the end of October 1946, he registered a 27% job approval rating in the Gallup Poll.

  When the votes came in, Republicans had ended the Democratic hold on Congress. The GOP gained 45 seats in the House and 12 seats in the Senate, winning a majority in each chamber for the first time since 1930. The repudiation was so severe that Sen. William Fulbright of Arkansas suggested that Truman should appoint a Republican secretary of state and then resign, an act that would have made that Republican the next president, given the legal order of presidential succession in 1946 (the office of vice president had been vacant since Truman became president upon FDR’s death). Truman declined to take that step, but in short order, he ended the state of war, rescinded most wartime controls, and disbanded the Office of Price Administration. He also proposed a balanced budget. If some New Dealers had hoped that the wartime expansion of federal power over the economy could be smoothly converted into equivalent peacetime power, 1946 disabused them. 

  1918, 1946 – and 2022

  The elections of 1918 and 1946 were not identical. One happened while war still raged, though the issue seemed decided; the other did not occur until over a year after fighting had stopped. Republican gains in 1946 were roughly twice what they had been 28 years earlier. In one case (1918), Republicans subsequently held on to congressional majorities for a dozen years; in the other, they managed to do so for only a single term. Nevertheless, 1918 and 1946 share enough with one another, and with our current situation, to make it worthwhile to ask what they might tell us about 2022.

  At the least, these two elections represented decisive electoral backlash against crisis policies – policies that voters tolerated while the crisis was hot but turned against when the danger had seemingly passed. Our crisis, a pandemic, is not a war, but it has been costly in lives lost. The U.S. is nearing a COVID death toll twice as great as the number of Americans who died in World War II. Like the world wars, the crisis has also been costly in terms of government spending, the bill for which is coming due in the form of higher inflation. And the crisis has occasioned a forceful intrusion of government into daily life unparalleled since World War II, from mask mandates to proposed vaccine mandates to lockdowns that closed thousands of businesses, churches, and schools. Whatever the efficacy of these measures – they will be debated for years to come – there can be little doubt that they represented an extraordinary degree of regimentation and an extraordinary challenge to civil liberties.

  Is a backlash building ahead of the 2022 midterms?

  Republican successes in the 2021 elections would seem to suggest so. Some evidence indicates that backlash against COVID restrictions was part of the story behind GOP successes in Virginia and New Jersey. In some Virginia exit polls, education was the second-most important issue; while the battle over critical race theory in schools received the most attention, some suburban women voters said that COVID-related school closures also played an important role in their swing toward Republicans.

  In New Jersey, truck driver Edward Durr defeated longtime state Senate President Steve Sweeney. Durr called his victory “a repudiation of the [COVID] policies that have been forced down [the people’s] throats.” Incoming Republican Senate leader Steve Oroho agreed. “I think it had to do with the message coming from people who were just annoyed at all the executive orders and all the mandates and being sick and tired of being told what they can and can’t do,” he said. At the gubernatorial level, a long-shot Republican nearly rode the backlash to victory against incumbent Phil Murphy, whose response to COVID had been one of the nation’s most draconian – and most ineffective, if measured by deaths per 100,000.

  In California, Gavin Newsom turned back a recall attempt in September. The recall effort itself was largely driven by dissatisfaction with the governor’s coronavirus response and violation of his own mask mandate at a private dinner for lobbyists at the swanky French Laundry restaurant. Though Newsom held on to his office by a wide margin, recall organizers’ success in getting 1.7 million valid signatures on petitions in the Golden State was itself evidence of public anger, as was Newsom’s perilous standing in polls a month before recall Election Day.

  More generally in the realm of public opinion, Gallup has reported that sentiment on the question of whether government should be more active or less – a question that a majority answered in favor of more action in 2020 – has reverted to form. Government, a majority now says, is too big and does too much.

  Not all evidence points the same way, though. Newsom and Murphy ultimately won, and exit polls showed a Virginia electorate ambivalent about the COVID response, not one that had turned decisively against the COVID regime. For example, most Virginians still said they supported mask mandates in schools, and a slight plurality said that they trusted Terry McAuliffe more than Glen Youngkin on COVID policy. At most, 2021 exposed the potential for a stronger backlash ahead.  Perhaps the biggest difference between 1918 and 1946, on the one hand, and 2021, on the other, was that in 2021 the crisis was still not in the rearview mirror. If and when it finally gets there, watch out.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 19:40

• Disney Under Fire For Blocking Simpsons Episode From Hong Kong Streaming Services
  Disney Under Fire For Blocking Simpsons Episode From Hong Kong Streaming Services

  A month ago we reported that Hong Kong’s new pro-China film censorship law could see an eventual ban on Netflix and Amazon and other streaming services. The legislation was part of the continuing unfolding of the sweeping pro-China ‘national security law’ of June 2020, with the film censorship even working retroactively for any movies or programming “found to be contrary to national security interests”.

  Questions are now being asked about why Disney’s streaming service in Hong Kong, Disney Plus, has blocked a popular episode of the “Simpsons”. The episode in question features reference to the famous “tank man” photo from the June 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. The episode entitled “Goo Goo Gai Pan” also features jokes or references that could be deemed offensive to people of Chinese or Asian descent.

  

  The censorship law which was enacted late last month brings Hong Kong in closer to conformity to the kind of blatant censoring and wholesale blocking of content that’s long existed on the mainland. The law spells out that films are prohibited from any content aiming to “endorse, support, glorify, encourage and incite activities that might endanger national security.”

  According to The Wall Street Journal on Monday:

  Disney launched its streaming service, Disney+, earlier in November in Hong Kong featuring an array of programming owned by the entertainment giant, including 32 seasons of the animated comedy series.

  Yet one episode is missing from “The Simpsons” lineup: Titled “Goo Goo Gai Pan,” the episode from season 16 centers on a trip to China by the show’s namesake family. Along the way they encounter a plaque at Tiananmen Square in Beijing that reads: “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened.”

  The scene is an obvious sarcastic shot aimed directly at Chinese Communist propaganda and its well-known whitewashing of the whole events of June 4, when the PLA military declared martial law and occupied central parts of Beijing, forcibly quelling the protests through gunfire. In the episode the family actually takes a trip to China where they happen upon the iconic square where “nothing happened”. 

  Chinese state official have downplayed the death toll, saying in the past that up to 200 civilians died in the mayhem, while activists and student leaders have said over 3,000 or more deaths resulted in the PLA crackdown, which included live ammunition, and use of tanks against civilian crowds. Official Chinese media and politicians tens to only reference what they dub “the incident”.

  Confirmed this second by a friend in Hong Kong.

  S16E12 of The Simpsons is removed from Disney+ in Hong Kong. pic.twitter.com/9QIp2vcOCD

  — Thor J (@thorcmd) November 27, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The WSJ notes that it’s as yet unclear if Disney caved to pressure from China, as the US company has yet to publicly comment on why the episode in question remains blocked.

  But there’s little doubt Disney has in the recent past shown its willingness to “play nice” and avoid offending Beijing while protecting its billions in revenue there: “Disney has huge business interests in China, a market that it and other Hollywood studios are careful not to offend for fear of losing access,” the WSJ report describes. “Disney, with resorts in China and Hong Kong and extensive sales from its movie business in the region, has moved aggressively to maintain the peace with China over the years, a fact that has brought it some controversy in the U.S.”

  Shortly after the HK policy was enacted, there were questions over how it would impact US-based streaming services. The AFP observed at the time: “Pro-Beijing lawmakers criticized the government for not including online streaming companies in the current wording, meaning services like Netflix, HBO and Amazon may not be covered but the new rules.” But “In response, Commerce Secretary Edward Yau said all screenings, both physical and online, were covered by the new national security law.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 19:20

• How California "Solved" Its Record Ship Pileup: It Moved Them Out Of Sight, Over The Horizon
  How California “Solved” Its Record Ship Pileup: It Moved Them Out Of Sight, Over The Horizon

  By Greg Miller of FreightWaves,

  By one measure, the number of container ships stuck waiting offshore of Los Angeles and Long Beach has plummeted. The logjam hit a peak of 86 container ships offshore on Nov. 16, according to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California. A week later, it was a mere 61, the lowest since early October.

  Problem solved?

  

  Far from it.

  The waiting container ships are still out there — more of them than ever. It’s just that more are over the horizon, where you can’t see them, thanks to the successful implementation of a new queuing system that began last week.

  “The overall flow of container ships and big-picture backup has not changed,” acknowledged Marine Exchange of Southern California Executive Director Kip Louttit.

  If you include all of the container ships physically at anchor on Tuesday off LA/LB, plus the ships in holding patterns within 40 miles of the ports, which were counted in the previous queuing system, plus all the ships waiting further afield that are now technically in the queue under the new system, then 93 container vessels were waiting for berths at Los Angeles/Long Beach on Tuesday, a new all-time high.

  

  New queuing plan rapidly adopted

  The new queuing system was designed to sharply reduce the number of container vessels waiting just offshore of Los Angeles/Long Beach, with the stated goal of cutting harmful emissions and enhancing safety during the winter months by spacing out the ships.

  A more cynical view has emerged: that an unstated goal is to erase a politically nettlesome photo op — attention-grabbing imagery of idle container ships stretching off into the distance.

  The new plan is entirely voluntary and encourages ships to operate outside of a Safety and Air Quality Area (SAQA) that extends 150 miles to the west of the ports and 50 miles to the north and south. Ships do not have to ask for permission to enter the SAQA and are encouraged to enter the SAQA if they need to refuel, have safety concerns or have a berth assignment within 72 hours. By year-end, the hope is to reduce the number of ships at the anchorages from a max of 55 down to 25-35 and to cut the number of ships loitering in the SAQA to near zero.

  For the past 100 years, container ships have been placed in the LA/LB queue when they hit the 20-mile line from the ports. But given historic bottlenecks on land in 2021, this first-come, first-served protocol bunched up an unprecedented number of ships in a small area.

  Under the new system, participating container ships are given a Calculated Time of Arrival (CTA) by the Pacific Maritime Monitoring System (PacMMS) after leaving their last port of call, whether it’s Shanghai or Oakland. They can then save on fuel by slow steaming toward LA/LB, knowing their spot in line is reserved based on their CTA, and wait outside the SAQA.

  Ocean carriers have readily accepted the new protocol. There were already 109 container ships enrolled in the PacMMS as of Monday. With each passing day, more container ships arrive from Asia and putter around further away from LA/LB. There are now ships bound for LA/LB in holding patterns south of Ensenada, Mexico, north of San Francisco and over 400 miles out into the Pacific.

  

  Landside problems keep offshore waits high

  The new queuing protocol complicates historical comparisons on the scope of the Southern California container-ship traffic jam.

  The best apples-to-apples approximation is to take the number of ships at anchor and loitering in legacy holding areas within 40 miles of the ports, as reported by the Marine Exchange, then add in the number of ships that have a CTA before the date and time that the Marine Exchange’s daily Master Queuing List was generated.

  In other words, add back the ships that hypothetically would have been waiting just offshore of LA/LB, had they not intentionally slowed down or opted to wait elsewhere along the Pacific coastline.

  On Tuesday, there were 36 container ships at anchor and 25 loitering within 40 miles (the loitering total is half what it was the week before). However, there were an additional 32 container ships with CTAs prior to the time of Tuesday’s Master Queueing List report, bringing the “virtual” total to a record 93.

  The numbers confirm how rapidly the new queuing plan is being accepted and also underscore that the offshore traffic jam is still not improving.

  Because of the logistics snarl on land — at the terminals, with the trucks, the rail and the warehouses — the wait time to get from anchorage to a berth in Los Angeles is still rising. As of Tuesday, wait time hit yet another all-time high: 18.6 days.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 19:00

• Arabica Stockpiles Experience Largest Plunge Since '98 Amid Severe Shortage
  Arabica Stockpiles Experience Largest Plunge Since ’98 Amid Severe Shortage

  The supply deficit of arabica coffee beans (something we first warned in March and later explained in May) is becoming more severe as certified warehouses of the premium coffee bean monitored by ICE Futures U.S. plunged.

  Stockpiles of arabica coffee beans in ICE warehouses plunged 10% last week, the most significant drop since August 1998. Outflows from warehouses logged their 10th-straight weekly drop, a reflection of tight global supplies. Arabica coffee prices have more than doubled since we first mentioned the onset of the supply crunch.

  

  Arabica coffee accounts for more than half of the world’s coffee production has seen prices erupt this year amid adverse weather conditions in Brazil, the world’s leading producer. Robusta coffee prices have also surged as international coffee companies have had no other choice but to source cheaper beans as arabica is in short supply. 

  International Coffee Organization, a London-based group that represents both producers and consumers, said, “weather-related shocks and potential disruptions in trade flows from stricter pandemic-related measures have become a serious threat to the regularity of coffee supplies.” 

  This means for the U.S., the leading country in terms of coffee consumption, with upwards of 150 million Americans hooked on the delicious liquid stimulant, that a cup of coffee at home or in a retail setting, such as Starbucks, will become even more expensive. Also, factor in congested supply chains and soaring freight costs, and some Americans might switch from arabica to robusta to save money. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 18:40

• Green Technologies Have A Glaring Problem Of Scale
  Green Technologies Have A Glaring Problem Of Scale

  Authored by Iddo Wernick via RealClearScience.com,

  In the context of the massive attention paid to climate change, nations around the world have committed to substantially reducing and even eliminating their carbon emissions by 2050. Achieving these goals relies on several ‘green’ technologies that would form the basis of a future energy system. As envisioned, mass deployment of these technologies will encounter fundamental physical limits that call into question their ability to function as replacements for their equivalents in the current energy system. By placing firm targets, nations around the world have committed to terminating their carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 to offer confidence that a better world is achievable if only society implements the right policies and employs the correct technologies. This assumption is inaccurate, based on a view that is at odds with nature.

  

  Due to unavoidable physical constraints, future green technologies offer little promise for achieving economies of scale. Many of the improvements suggested to improve their performance remain marginal and frequently come with the environmental costs of additional embedded energy requirements, extensive land use and greater material complexity. The outcomes achieved under laboratory conditions are not guaranteed to be viable at the scale necessary for them to make a significant difference. 

  Efforts to improve energy efficiency remain essential, but those efforts are not likely to reduce aggregate energy use. The vehicles and appliances of 2050 will likely be more efficient than those of today, but precisely because of their greater efficiency there will be many more of them. Under almost any scenario, global electricity demand will increase between now and 2050 and meaningful reductions in carbon emissions will need to come from changes in the primary energy supply.

  The technological vision implied by national pledges for a carbon neutral 2050 assumes that future societies will be able to:

  1) Harvest nearly all the energy society uses directly from renewable natural sources (sun, wind, currents, waves, vegetation);

  2) Store large amounts of electricity over long periods, and

  3) Collect carbon dioxide molecules from mixed gases and dispose of them. A further implied assumption is that governments and citizens will be willing to pay the costs of environmental externalities independent of their cost, including the costs of avoiding a predicted climate disaster.

  Technologies designed to capture the radiant energy of the sun or the kinetic energy of the wind must accommodate the inherent randomness of these sources. Nature’s tendency to favor disorder over order (i.e., the 2nd law of thermodynamics) complicates the goal of extracting net energy from sources that rely directly on meteorological conditions. Moreover, the engineering devices deployed to convert these sources into electricity are subject to physical laws that limit their practical efficiency actually converting solar radiation and moving air into useful energy. 

  Centuries of searching for chemically compatible materials for a battery that can store significant energy, charge quickly, sustain many charge-discharge cycles, and do so safely and reliably have yielded batteries capable of powering appliances but still not well suited to powering vehicles or electric grids. Todays’ electric cars use a considerable amount of energy to transport their own battery packs. Utility scale batteries require massive capital outlays for equipment that offers hours, not days, of storage capacity. Huge economic rewards await those who can solve the technical puzzle of safe, reliable, energy dense batteries, but so far this object remains elusive.

  The technical problem of reliably removing carbon dioxide molecules from a mixed gas has been solved. Nonetheless, the removal process requires significant energy that reduces the net amount of useful energy generated when burning hydrocarbons. After decades of research and development, removing CO2 from a post combustion waste stream still requires 20-30% of the total energy generated under ideal conditions.

  Clever engineering can finesse technical challenges but cannot overcome fundamental forces of nature. The technologies proposed for meeting future carbon-neutral energy commitments rely on manipulating materials and energy at increasingly microscopic scales. Typically, proposed technologies rely on employing sophisticated control systems or highly engineered materials that improve efficiency outcomes. However, even pilot-scale advances in green energy technologies may offer little proof of their success when scaled up to mass production and consumption as the same strict tolerances and controlled conditions become more difficult to achieve. 

  Successful technologies may not succeed instantly and need to emerge over time, but their success cannot be forced by government fiat or the mandates of Five-Year Plans. Widely diffused technologies generally exploit sound scientific principles that benefit the humans they are intended to serve. They offer economic benefit by adding value to goods and services that consumers are willing to pay for. They typically rely on some scientific phenomenon that can be enhanced through the diligence of engineers to innovate in applying it.  For example, engineers have learned to control how we burn fuels to create optimal conditions for efficient heat generation and heat transport in power plants, homes and vehicles. The history of growth in digital processing and communication similarly relies on repeatedly exploiting basic principles in solid state physics with greater and greater engineering skill.

  Confidence that green technologies can scale to dominate national energy systems remains based more on marketing claims than on demonstrated operational experience. The national goals set for 2050 present a supreme technological challenge to reduce environmental fallout while raising living standards for billions around the globe. Neither rich nor poor nations can afford to invest in technologies that achieve questionable benefits at the expense of accessible, reliable energy services for its citizens. Technologies that do not scale are destined to remain boutique technologies, the purview of the rich, environmental activists, and politicians that seize upon them to make empty promises.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 18:20

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• Luongo: Being Thankful Is The Path To Victory Over Davos
  Luongo: Being Thankful Is The Path To Victory Over Davos

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. It is the one day where we celebrate putting aside our differences and doing the most basic thing humans can do together, share a meal.

  It is also the one holiday that does nothing to aggrandize The State in all its rotten guises. For that alone it would be my personal favorite. Ultimately this is just a story about two very different people coming together to share the fruits of the harvest and the hunt to begin the long and difficult process of building trust.

  Trust, by the way, is the basis for civilization itself. Without trust there is nothing, just The Hunger Games.

  It doesn’t matter whether the stories of the first Thanksgiving are true or not. Only those with an obsession with demystifying the world to salve their own inner emptiness care about such historical ‘truths.’

  It is the story itself that has power, like all great stories.

  It’s a story that is deeply embedded in the Myth of America as the great experiment in governance and rebellion against the colonial powers of Europe.

  In the end, that Myth is just that, of course, a myth.

  America’s history is much more nuanced and complex, darker and lighter than the foundations of that Myth care to admit. I’m not here to white, brown or even greenwash America’s history any more than an honest British, Italian, Russian, or Chinese person would do to their own.

  I’m here to discuss why it is we should be thankful for even having a world where such Myths can even exist.

  Of course history is messy. It’s violent and, at times, horrific. Yes, some people suck. Wars happened and will happen. Genocides committed and are yet to be committed.

  The big stories we all thrill to on our screens today big and small try to help us navigate what happens when people go mad in groups, lose their sense of propriety and humility, and become obsessed with their own fears at the expense of their empathy.

  This is what a breakdown of trust leads to, a loss of civilization.

  We live in a time where those in power show their bottomless disdain for humanity by only focusing on those bad parts of it. It’s now grown to even dissing this one American tradition that is one of the last honest lessons for a world spiraling out of control.

  Because that is what Thanksgiving is all about. Taking a time out from the harsh reality of existence and being thankful for what you have, not envious of or wistful for what you don’t.

  To listen to the race-baiting, soulless apparatchiks screeching about how we should turn Thanksgiving into yet another opportunity to distrust each other before eating a meal devoid of nutrition, i.e. the turkey, desperately imploring us to keep up barriers between family members over COVID is revealing more of their sickness than anyone else’s.

  These are people without hope or faith in anything. They are fallen, power-hungry zombies consumed with self-importance painting on a face of empathy while extolling medical apartheid and scapegoating the unvaxxed to fuel their hatred.

  These are humanity’s enemies, not a virus with a 0.1% mortality rate or those brave enough to face it without the help of Big Brother.

  And yet, we should even be thankful for them.

  Because without them as a counter-example, we have no way to gauge our own behavior. We have no mirror to look into and see our own tendencies towards ugliness. Because without that ability to see first hand what it is we do not want to be, we become as lost in our own fugue of self-importance which justifies any amount of violence as they are.

  I don’t hate the Joy Ann Reids and the Jenn Psakis of this world. I celebrate their depravity because without them there can be no opportunity to point out just how insane the world they advocate is.

  Peaking Duck

  Last week I speculated that we had reached Peak Davos. I’m surprised to report that I got a lot less push back from that article than I was expecting.

  Right on cue, the morning after our annual celebration of common decency and reconnection with our deracinated families, we are bombarded with a new variant of COVID to bludgeon us with.

  On the thinnest trading day of the year in the U.S., when most of us are nursing epic carb hangovers while doomscrolling through our Twitter feeds and trolling Amazon for the best deals on a bunch of shit we know in our hearts we don’t need, they trot out the fear porn nuclear barrage.

  The Dow? Down 1119.00 points.

  Oil? Down $9.31 per barrel.

  Bitcoin? Down $5200, nearly 10%

  If you thought you could escape Davos‘ Great Reset, think again. Everything you have will be theirs. Everything you desire — family, home, stability, hope — is subject to their approval. Pay no attention to the timing, the virology, or the logic. Just ab-react in real time to a wholly manufactured farce which if you watched it as a movie after Thanksgiving dinner, you’d shut off for being too contrived.

  Honestly, at this point they really should hire some better writers because this movie sucks worse than Captain Marvel did.

  The ‘Nu’ variant, or NuVID for short, is evolving so fast even its name had to be quickly changed to Omicron to keep us confused. Is it the Nu variant? or Omicron? People will now spend hours of their lives being corrected about what the name of this thing is so midwits can make themselves feel more informed than their mouth-breathing, unvaxxed brethren they still hate.

  We don’t know anything about NuVID than it has evolved multiple new spike proteins and whatever else the gods of virology deign to tell us about it.

  Even though we know next to nothing of either the virulence or transmissibility of NuVID, the first response from the usual suspects is to ramp up talk of further locking down populations all over Europe. The world was beginning to get back to some semblance of normal but now everyone is flapping their wings in panic like my ducks do when the dogs hear a noise in the woods and start barking.

  We’d faced down our worst fears and were beginning to work through the supply chain issues, the backlogs of paperwork, and had adjusted to new workflows and schedules. Those that stood in opposition to the vaccine mandates wouldn’t be budged from their positions anymore and their protests not televised.

  Vaccine distribution centers were shutting down, people were assuming the risk of living, finding sources of ivermectin and HCQ to treat themselves while the Medical Industrial Complex kept trying to get in their way.

  And so our reward for being thankful for mostly feeling like we’d gotten through this terrible ordeal — the hysteria over the virus, not the virus itself — was to be threatened again with more of the same.

  And, again, I am thankful for this. Because this latest round of fear porn is the most obvious, the most over-the-top, the crudest attempt at psychological warfare Davos has engaged in yet.

  That makes it easy to look at and laugh.

  But this doesn’t matter to those in charge. If we laugh at them and their seriousness become even more incensed.

  They could see their bonds slipping and people getting back to normal. They could see the same massive protests around the world outside their seats of power that I’ve seen and knew it was time to play their next, even more desperate card.

  The only thing that I’m even remotely afraid of at this point are the people who still need to believe in all of this.

  And yet, we should still be thankful for the confirmation of our knowing they have been lying to us about all of this the entire time.

  This will be my last attempt to try to get through to the fearful again. Cases aren’t hospitalizations. And hospitalizations aren’t a death sentence. With the mountain of evidence out there that none of the numbers we’ve been given about COVID were ever accurate why do you think we should believe anything about NuVID?

  Trust Should be a Four-Letter Word

  It gets back to that basic building block of civilization itself. Trust.

  Without it the Pilgrims and the Native Americans couldn’t have sat down around the table together. Without it the Pilgrims wouldn’t have even been able to cross the Atlantic in the first place, or hired the boat that brought them there. Without trust that boat would still have been a glint in the eye of the person dreaming of building it, since it was a project far grander than his meager allotment of time on this planet would have been able to complete.

  Davos says it is motivated by a desire to save humanity from itself. It has deemed our civilization unworthy of them and their grand ideas and like angry gods are in the process of wiping it clean from the earth to Build it Back Better, in their image, not ours.

  But that idea cannot become real unless we lend it credence, unless we, like them become consumed with the things we’ve lost and will never have rather than embrace that which is in front of us. Civilization isn’t some esoteric thing that can be conjured up by speaking magic words from a mass communications device.

  Civilization comes from looking another person in the eye, shaking their hand and making an agreement which both sides honor to the best of their ability.

  For a critical mass of people in the West, their trust in the institutions that governed them is gone. It is never coming back.

  And without that trust there can be no going back to the old system where Davos moved pieces on the board and we reacted to them within the rules of the game because we thought the rules reinforced civilization.

  But we know now that too, is a lie. And for that I am eternally thankful to Davos. Because without their Quixotic and, unfortunately, deadly quest to remake humanity so many people would have never woken up to the reality of their existence.

  That’s the reason why I’m more convinced today than before that we’ve reached Peak Davos because today I’m thankful for knowing the community of people ready to take that next first step across the divide and form new bonds of trust which will power the next myths capable of sustaining a better civilization.

  *  *  *

  Join My Patreon if you are still capable of trust

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/29/2021 – 02:00

• Jim Quinn: Fear Of Our Escalating Power Is Leading Elites To Increasingly Reckless Directives
  Jim Quinn: Fear Of Our Escalating Power Is Leading Elites To Increasingly Reckless Directives

  Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

  The Wall Was Too High, As You Can See

  Hey you, out there in the cold
  Getting lonely, getting old
  Can you feel me?
  Hey you, standing in the aisles
  With itchy feet and fading smiles
  Can you feel me?
  Hey you, don’t help them to bury the light
  Don’t give in without a fight

  Pink Floyd – Hey You

  

  I wrote an article in December 2012, a week after the Newtown school shooting, called Hey You. My interpretation of this classic Pink Floyd song was related to how our culture has created generations of alienated and isolated people, allowing Big Pharma to peddle their pharmaceutical concoctions to the masses as the “easy” solution to living “normally” in a profoundly abnormal society. My contention was these mass shootings by young men (Newtown, Columbine, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Tucson) were caused by the Big Pharma psychotropic drugs prescribed to all these young killers by sick industry peddlers (aka physicians).

  The hugely profitable Big Pharma solution to alienation, isolation and depression is drugs that turn a percentage of those afflicted into psychotic killers. The article’s premise was how our techno-narcissistic society, encouraged and enabled by our totalitarian overlords through mind manipulation, drugs, public education indoctrination, and propaganda, has purposely created the alienation, isolation, and hopelessness to further their goals of power, control, and wealth.

  When it comes to dystopian literature, there is always a clash between Huxley’s softer totalitarianism versus Orwell’s boot on your face tyranny when assessing how our governments enforce their dictates upon their subjects. The Wall certainly has an Orwellian bent, as it explores the issues of abandonment, isolation, alienation, authoritarianism, the brutality of war, a tyrannical conformist educational system, and the walls individuals and society build to protect themselves from having to confront reality and deal with the consequences of their actions.

  Once alienated from society, having built a wall between yourself and the outside world, attempting to reengage with society can be almost impossible, as the wall becomes too high, and no one can hear your pleas. Sometimes, there is no escape.

  

  The opening lyrics are haunting to me. I have felt like I’ve been out in the cold since the outset of this pandemic of herd madness in March 2020. I’ve gotten older and feel older. While family, friends, and coworkers have been drawn into this vortex of falsity, I feel like I am standing alone behind walls constructed by the government, the media, and society in general. It’s lonely when you chose to make a stand against the lies being peddled 24/7 by corrupt politicians, fake news pundits, faux medical “experts” bought off by Big Pharma, mega-corporations, and Hollywood propagandists playing their parts. These demonic forces have tried to bury the light of truth under an avalanche of lies.

  I’m unsure of their true purpose, but I am sure it will not be beneficial to me, my family or the honest hard-working people trying to survive this dystopian nightmare. Most days it feels like the evil forces arrayed against me and other lovers of liberty and freedom have the upper hand and cannot be defeated. I do feel isolated and alienated from the majority, as they have been psychologically manipulated to obey their masters, as their double vaccine dose, now requires a booster after six months, and will require annual boosters for eternity. They will unquestioningly submit, without ever using their critical thinking skills to grasp these are not real vaccines and do not work. I will not give in to their mass psychosis.

  

  Since I was relating the song to the Big Pharma drug induced mass shootings, my 2012 article gravitated towards Huxley’s view of totalitarianism, as he believed our overlords would use pharmaceuticals, conditioning, and mind control to achieve their evil means.

  “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” – Aldous Huxley – Brave New World

  

  “And always, everywhere, there would be the yelling or quietly authoritative hypnotists; and in the train of the ruling suggestion givers, always everywhere, the tribes of buffoons and hucksters, the professional liars, the purveyors of entertaining irrelevances. Conditioned from the cradle, unceasingly distracted, mesmerized systematically, their uniformed victims would go on obediently marching and countermarching, go on, always and everywhere, killing and dying with the perfect docility of trained poodles.” –  Aldous Huxley

  My dire view of our future was just as grim nine years ago as it is today. My belief was the alienation and isolation created by our sprawling, automobile dependent, technology obsessed, government controlled, debt financed society had spread like a cancerous tumor, slowly killing our country. As with most of my early articles I gravitated towards our dire fiscal situation and how it was surely unsustainable. My example was:

  Since 1979, Total Credit Market Debt in the United States has risen from $4.3 trillion to $55.3 trillion, a 1,286% increase in 33 years.

  It had gone up $51 trillion in 33 years. Well guess what? It now stands at $85 trillion, up another $30 trillion in 9 years, with no deceleration in sight. Since I wrote that 2012 article, the national debt went from $16 trillion to $29 trillion (up 81%), GDP went from $16 trillion to $23 trillion (up 44%), the Dow went from 13,000 to 36,000 (up 177%), and consumer debt went from $2.9 trillion to $4.4 trillion (up 52%).

  As usual, the plebs went further into debt, while their overlords saw their trillions in stock holdings almost triple in nine years. I thought the debt growth was unsustainable, but the Fed said hold my beer. Their debt creation orgy accelerates by the minute, with real inflation (as opposed to the fake BLS bullshit) running in excess of 10% hitting average Americans, while the Wall Street oligarchs get richer by the second. Even using the BLS bullshit inflation figures, the USD has lost 17% of its purchasing power since 2012, again screwing the little guy.

  

  The USD has lost 96.4% of its purchasing power since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. So much for meeting their “mandate” of stable prices. Do you get it yet? The Fed’s job is to enrich their owners (bankers & billionaire oligarchs) while enslaving you in debt and making sure your meager wages buy less and less each year. This is where the “You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy” slogan begins to make sense.

  The Build Back Better slogan, created by Schwab and his Davos co-conspirators, really refers to building a better wall around the plebs so they remain isolated, alienated and under control. Roger Waters has explained the song Hey You was also an exhortation to make connections with people, help each other, and overcome the alienation and isolation created by those pulling the strings of our societal dystopia.

  

  When I heard the song on the radio the other day, my take on the lyrics is now colored by the last two years of this engineered, weaponized, marketed Covid pandemic. The alienation and isolation have not been a choice of individuals, but a mandate from our authoritarian overlords. The wall is being built by those who want to destroy our existing structural paradigm and replace it with something they consider better, but which will be far worse for liberty and freedom minded individuals.

  A more Orwellian dystopia is being ushered in by Soros, Gates, Schwab and their chief lieutenants Biden, Pelosi, Fauci, Powell, along with the other highly paid apparatchiks in government, media, medical industrial complex, and military industrial complex.

  We were already in the death throes of the most dysfunctional, decadent, delusional, debt engendered era in the long history of mankind. Their debt saturated “solutions” from 2008 through 2019 reflected an air of desperation. Those in power realized their stranglehold on the narrative was slipping away and were in danger of seeing a sudden decline in their wealth and control over the masses.

  Rather than accept their slightly less profitable fate like normal human beings, these psychopaths have doubled down by using a relatively non-serious flu for anyone under 85 years old and not morbidly obese, to try and implement a new world order, where they continue to reap all the benefits and the masses incur the pain, suffering and death. The diabolical aspects of this evil undertaking are almost too outrageous to believe. They have redoubled their propaganda endeavors in order to convince the ignorant masses to willingly love their servitude.

  

  But it was only fantasy
  The wall was too high
  As you can see
  No matter how he tried
  He could not break free
  And the worms ate into his brain

  Pink Floyd – Hey You

  In today’s circumstances those lyrics reflect this fantasy/nightmare of Covid being used as the justification to destroy our economic system, drive hundreds of thousands of small businesses into bankruptcy, locking people in their homes for months, mandating useless masks as a dehumanization and fear tactic, mandating the injection of an experimental gene therapy into our bodies as a requirement to make a living, and using a bottomless supply of lies and media propaganda to convince an already dumbed down populace to beg for increased levels of servitude to those who haven’t been right about one thing since this scamdemic was launched.

  As others have noted, this hasn’t been a pandemic, it’s been an IQ test. And as a society we’ve scored low enough to be put on the short bus to the school for the slow-witted. The global oligarchs began constructing our wall, but millions of willing collaborator Karens and Todds are gleefully adding bricks to that wall.

  

  I’ve been flabbergasted since the outset of this propagandized and highly marketed fearfest, over a strain of the annual flu, by the lack of critical thinking skills exhibited by average Americans and their inability to understand simple mathematical risk calculations when they are told blatant lies by the likes of Fauci, Walensky and a plethora of Big Pharma bribed “medical experts” paraded on the boob tube every day. They have let feelings, emotions, and false narratives guide their actions, rather than facts, data, and scientific proof.

  Everyone has the freedom to verify what they are being told and calculate for themselves the 99.7% overall survival rate and 99.999995% survival rate for those under 25 years old. But they have been psychologically compelled to not question the State or embrace their Constitutional freedom to dissent and not comply. They unquestioningly inject their children with these drugs when unequivocal evidence shows a much higher risk from the jab than from Covid. Huxley realized decades ago a weak-minded populace could be easily manipulated. We have now reached peak complicity, compliance and cowering to the national State and those pulling the strings of our government.

  

  “This concern with the basic condition of freedom — the absence of physical constraint — is unquestionably necessary but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free — to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.” –  Aldous Huxley

  

  Huxley was not a big fan of technological “progress” as he just saw it as a more efficient means of going backwards. Those who believe technology is the answer to all of our problems are either insanely myopic or profiting from this fallacy. Technology has certainly contributed to allowing corporations to generate profits through efficiencies, marketing, logistics, and replacing human beings with computers and robots.

  Technology has also made it very efficient for the State to utilize propaganda, fear, and social indoctrination through electronic media to control the population and manipulate the narrative to suit their diabolic purposes. For the few who dissent from their commands, technology is used to sensor, de-platform, restrain, monitor, and destroy their lives, if necessary.

  

  Modern technology has a dual purpose, as an entertainment aphrodisiac, and an electronic boot stomping on your face forever. They want you distracted, amused, and consumed by trivialities, while they execute their wealth pillaging scheme and slowly build a technological wall which grows ever higher and impossible to escape. Consumption, diversion, and obedience is all they asked.

  Societal stability, in the eyes of the sociopath unseen rulers behind the curtain, is based upon state designed happiness, social indoctrination disguised as public education, endless war, fear-based propaganda, and the use of pharmaceuticals to alleviate dissent and wrong thinking. Normalcy, traditional families, community standards, hard work, thrift, self-responsibility, neighborly connections, faith, and self-governing are all antithetical to the societal breakdown required to implement the Great Reset. Therefore, these values are banned in the world we inhabit today.

  

  The best laid plans of the ruling class began to go awry in late 2019, as the gears of the financial system began to grind and fracture. The never-ending Trump coup was floundering under the weight of lies. Their wealth, power, and control were going to take a major hit. So, they decided to pull it. They had laid the groundwork for decades, creating generations trained to value material possessions, require instant gratification, shun critical thinking, let feelings guide their actions, believe debt acquired possessions constituted wealth, trust politicians are working in their best interests, and do whatever those deemed “experts” by the corporate media tell them to do.

  They have created tens of millions of mentally ill sheep who only appear normal because they fit in to this profoundly abnormal society, where they forfeited the thinking and decision making for their lives to people like Gates, Soros, Biden, Fauci and Zuckerberg, who despise them. Because of their government created neurosis and cowardly compliance, we are all victims, and the wall we must scale to escape gets higher by the day.

  

  “The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” –  Aldous Huxley

  

  The walls erected within Roger Waters’ lyrics were figurative, referring to the isolation and alienation from society chosen by an individual (himself). My interpretation, based on what myself and many others are experiencing today, is more literal, with the isolation and alienation being created by government and their mentally ill, willfully ignorant advocates of lockdowns, masking, jabs, mandates, passports, quarantine camps, and coercion to command compliance.

  This entire pandemic scheme has been designed as a divide and conquer undertaking, with the purpose of implementing their Great Reset plan to own everything while the plebs own nothing and happily do as they are told. For those of us not willing to go along with their plan, they have alternate arrangements in store. We are in the midst of this struggle for the future of our country and the world.

  

  The Party has told you to reject unequivocal facts during this entire engineered psychological operation. They convinced the vast majority of the population to be terrorized by a virus with a 99.7% survival rate that only kills the very old and the very obese. They said it didn’t come from the Wuhan lab and wasn’t funded by Fauci. They convinced the masses masks worked when they knew they didn’t.

  They said a fifteen-day lockdown would slow the spread and end the pandemic. They said their vaccines would immunize you from catching Covid before they changed the definition of vaccines and told you it was always supposed to just reduce the symptoms. They have convinced a couple hundred million people to participate in an experiment as guinea pigs for an unproven untested gene therapy.

  

  They continue to proclaim vaccines work, even though they don’t, and of course get your booster, also because they don’t work. They refuse to acknowledge natural immunity to be far more effective and long-lasting than their jabs. No money to be made from natural immunity. They have censored and de-platformed anyone who showed proof ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine worked better than the vaccines.

  No money in subscribing either safe and effective treatment. They deny the vaccines have caused millions of adverse reactions and tens of thousands of deaths. They have instructed you to reject all of this evidence of their deceit and demonic designs to abscond with your wealth, freedoms, and liberties.

  

  As we enter Biden’s dark winter, you can sense the desperation of the Party/Deep State/Oligarchy as they employ more coercive and destructive tactics to force the non-compliant to obey and do as they are told. They are attempting to isolate and alienate those who refuse to submit to their clearly unlawful vaccine mandates by excluding them from society and threatening their livelihoods.

  The threats and intimidation have succeeded with a significant portion of the holdouts, but tens of millions are refusing to bend the knee. Many feel alone in their resistance to these totalitarian measures, as those in control of the narrative have painted a picture of only a small minority of conspiracy theorists rejecting their Great Reset authoritarian blueprint. The wall seems too high for many.

  

  The truth be told, their blueprint is growing stale, as they desperately attempt to strike fear into the masses with their latest variant of the month. The truth is they fear our opposition. They fear we will inspire more people to resist. They fear we will band together. They fear the truth, which is the backbone for our resistance. They fear we are heavily armed. They fear us realizing we are actually the majority. They fear they are starting to lose.

  Their fear of our escalating power is leading them to make increasingly reckless and drastic pronouncements and demands. The push back to their directives is gaining in intensity. They believe they can make the wall high enough to deter those who could foil their Great Reset scheme. The odds are in their favor because they control the politicians, media, corporations, and the minds of the indoctrinated sheep, but don’t tell me there’s no hope at all. We have truth, the Constitution, the 2nd Amendment, and millions of liberty-minded truculent partisans who will not bend to their will. We have no choice but to fight, using any means at our disposal. We realize we must stand together, because divided we will fall.

  

  Hey you, out there on the road

  Always doing what you’re told

  Can you help me?

  Hey you, out there beyond the wall

  Breaking bottles in the hall

  Can you help me?

  Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all

  Together we stand, divided we fall

  Pink Floyd – Hey You

  *  *  *

  The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 23:30

• Chinese Spy Ship Stayed 3 Weeks Off Australia's Coast, Observing Military Bases
  Chinese Spy Ship Stayed 3 Weeks Off Australia’s Coast, Observing Military Bases

  On Friday Australia’s Defense Minister Peter Dutton called out China for its disconnect between presenting itself as committed to peace versus the reality. “We’re all familiar with the frequent claims of the Chinese government that it is committed to peace, cooperation and development,” Dutton began in a speech in Canberra.

  “And yet we bear witness to a significant disconnect between the words and the actions. We’ve watched very closely as the Chinese government has engaged in increasingly alarming activities,” he added. Just prior to his remarks the Aussie government revealed this weekend that a Chinese spy ship was recently observed spying along the Australian coast line, where it stayed for three weeks.

  

  “The Yuhengxing spy ship is understood to have entered Australia’s 200km exclusive economic zone near Darwin in August and September,” Seven News Australia reported. “It then sailed south as far as Sydney, passing a number of important military areas, before heading across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.”

  The federal government said that the Ministry of Home Affairs “closely monitored” the ship, with a top official saying, “I can certainly confirm that there was a Chinese military vessel operating off the east coast of Australia that had transited through the Torres Strait.”

  While it past the aforementioned notably military bases, the spy vessel was not reported to have breached Australia’s territorial waters, defined as within 12 nautical miles of the coast. Regardless amid tit-for-tat warnings between the two large Pacific power in the wake of the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal with the United States, the spy ship incident has only added to already soaring tensions.

  In response to Dutton’s aggressive Friday remarks directed toward leaders in Beijing, the Chinese embassy in Canberra issued a statement denouncing his remarks, saying his distorted view of China’s intentions and policies “fanning conflict and division between peoples and nations” – especially by misleading his own people. 

  Chinese spy ships, and powerful warships & submarines, are going to be a regular presence off Australia’s coast as #China’s navy rapidly grows and matures. Yet @ScottMorrison is happy to wait until 2040 before Australia gets any new subs! #snafu #auspol https://t.co/9fxB9IzX3J

  — Rex Patrick (@Senator_Patrick) November 25, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “It is inconceivable that China-Australia relationship will take on a good momentum … if the Australian government bases its national strategy on such visionless analysis and outdated mentality,” the embassy added said in the statement.

  Meanwhile it’s expected that China will only send more vessels to regularly observe Australia’s defenses, particularly after Beijing officials have interpreted the AUKUS deal as signaling the country is effectively abandoning its status as a nuclear-free zone. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 23:00

• US Refuses To Engage With Marshall Islands On Nuke Damage
  US Refuses To Engage With Marshall Islands On Nuke Damage

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  The US is refusing to engage with the Marshall Islands on compensation for environmental and health damage caused by the dozens of US nuclear weapons tests carried out in the 1940s and 50s, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

  The Marshall Islands are home to a major US military base and are essentially treated as a US territory under an agreement known as the Compact of Free Association. But the agreement is due to expire soon, and the dispute over the nuclear weapons test has some members of Congress concerned.

  

  The US lawmakers are not worried that the people of the Marshall Islands haven’t been properly compensated. Instead, they fear China could move in. “China is all too ready to step in and provide the desperately needed infrastructure and climate resiliency investment that is sought by these long-time partners,” 10 Democratic and Republican House members wrote in a letter to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

  In the 1980s, the US agreed to give the Marshall Islands a $150 million settlement, but this amount fell well short of what is needed to clean up all of the radioactive debris. “Everyone knows the negotiations at that time were not fair or equitable,” Marshallese Senator David Paul told AP. “When you look at the total cost of property damage and the ongoing health issues to date, it’s a drop in the bucket. It’s an insult.”

  A US officials admitted to AP that Washington had “stonewalled” talks on the US’s nuclear legacy. “We know that’s important, but there is a full and final settlement, and both sides agreed to it. So, that issue is just not subject to being reopened,” the official said.

  AP also spoke with James Matayoshi, the mayor of Rongelap Atoll on the Marshall Islands. Like hundreds of other Marshallese, Matayoshi had been displaced from his native atoll by the nuclear weapons tests and hasn’t returned. His late mother was pregnant at the time of one of the blasts and gave birth to a stillborn baby due to radiation exposure.

  

  Concerning China, Matayoshi said officials are seeking Asian investments, and any such deals wouldn’t be about Chinese influence.

  “It would be a business transaction. We don’t advocate for war or any superpower influence. But we want to be able to live in our backyard, and enjoy life here,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 22:30

• Canada's Indigenous Health Expert Fired After Pulling Liz Warren Pocahontas Act
  Canada’s Indigenous Health Expert Fired After Pulling Liz Warren Pocahontas Act

  Canada’s top expert on indigenous health issues has been fired from her job and lost her professorship after suspicious colleagues revealed that her claims of Native American heritage were complete bullshit.

  

  Public health expert Carrie Bourassa, a total fraud, was the scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health, She was suspended on Nov. 1, just five days after the CBC revealed the truth.

  With a feather in her hand and a bright blue shawl and Métis sash draped over her shoulders, Carrie Bourassa made her entrance to deliver a TEDx Talk at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon in September 2019, where she detailed her personal rags-to-riches story.

  “My name is Morning Star Bear,” she said, choking up. “I’m just going to say it — I’m emotional.”

  The crowd applauded and cheered.

  “I’m Bear Clan. I’m Anishinaabe Métis from Treaty Four Territory,” Bourassa said, explaining that she grew up in Regina’s inner city in a dysfunctional family surrounded by addiction, violence and racism. -CBC

  It was all a lie.

  After a lengthy trace of Bourassa’s family tree, it was uncovered that her ancestors were in fact Polish, Russian and Czech immigrant farmers, not Métis nation natives.

  “It makes you feel a bit sick,” said Métis expert Janet Smylie at the University of Toronto, who worked with Bourassa on a book covering indigenous parenting. “To have an impostor who is speaking on behalf of Métis and indigenous people to the country about literally what it means to be Métis … that’s very disturbing and upsetting and harmful.”

  Colleagues grew suspicious after Bourassa began claiming she had Anishinaabe and Tlingit blood, and began dressing up like a stereotypical Native American – starting with a 2019 appearance in full tribal regalia to give a TEDx Talk at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

  “When I saw that TEDx, to be quite honest, I was repulsed by how hard she was working to pass herself off as indigenous,” said associate professor of Indigenous studies, Winona Wheeler, a documented member of Manitoba’s Fisher River Cree Nation – who started digging into Bourassa’s heritage before taking her findings to the media.

  After she was confronted with the evidence, Bourassa changed her story – now claiming she had been adopted into the Métis community by an unnamed friend of her deceased grandfather.

  “Even though Clifford passed, those bonds are even deeper than death because the family has taken me as if I was their blood family” she said, adding “In turn, I serve the Métis community to the best of my ability.”

  If only she was a sitting US Democratic Senator!

  

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 22:00

• Why Crime Is Out Of Control In San Francisco
  Why Crime Is Out Of Control In San Francisco

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

  San Franciscans get what they voted for with Chesa Boudin…

  

  When Chesa Boudin ran for San Francisco district attorney in 2019, he said crime was caused by poverty, wealth inequality and inadequate government spending on social programs. He called prostitution, open drug use and drug dealing “victimless crimes” and promised not to prosecute them. The result has been an increase in crime so sharp that San Francisco’s liberal residents are now paying for private security guards, taking self-defense classes, and supporting a recall of Mr. Boudin, with a vote set for June 2022. Retailers like Walgreens and Target are closing stores in the city, citing rampant shoplifting. Last week, a shockingly organized mob of looters ransacked a downtown Louis Vuitton store.

  Mr. Boudin and his defenders say crime in San Francisco has actually declined under his watch. The store closings had little to do with shoplifting, they insist; Walgreens announced in 2019 it would close stores as a cost-saving measure. And after the Louis Vuitton looting, Mr. Boudin talked tough on Twitter : “Standby for felony charges. Indeed, some crimes did decline, but for Covid-related reasons, while many other offenses increased. The pandemic crimped tourism, which meant fewer car break-ins and less shoplifting, but both are now on the rise. Car break-ins were 75% higher in May 2021 than in 2019, before the pandemic.

  While it’s true that official incidents of shoplifting haven’t increased under Mr. Boudin, the punishment has changed—and the bad guys appear to have gotten the message. In 2019, 40% of all shoplifting reports resulted in arrest; in 2021, under Mr. Boudin, only 19% did. Walgreens says shoplifting is five times as high, and security costs 50 times as high, in its San Francisco stores as the chainwide average.

  Why Crime Is Rising in San Francisco: A Video Explainerpic.twitter.com/Tc6TW4Eq9j

  — Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 28, 2021

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  Meantime, the charging rate for theft by Mr. Boudin’s office declined from 62% in 2019 to 46% in 2021; for petty theft it fell from 58% to 35%. San Francisco’s jail population has plummeted to 766 in 2021 from 2,850 in 2019. More than half of all offenders, and three-quarters of the most violent ones, who are released from jail before trial commit new crimes.

  Like other progressive prosecutors around the country, Mr. Boudin has expressed great antipathy toward the police. At his election-night party, a supporter led the crowd in a chant against the Police Officers’ Association: “F— the POA! F— the POA!” The San Francisco Police Department is short 400 officers and demoralized. A security video obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle last week appeared to show officers allowing a robbery of a marijuana dispensary. Total narcotics arrests declined by half from 2019 to 2021.

  Mr. Boudin has increased charges for some crimes. The charging rate for rape rose from 43% to 53%, and for narcotics dealing from 47% to 60%, even as it declined for theft, illegal weapons and assault. He appears to be following through on his promise to ignore quality-of-life crimes, but it’s also the case that the state has ordered local prosecutors to reduce prosecution of such crimes because of Covid.

  The solution to San Francisco’s problems is relatively straightforward. The city needs to shut down the drug scene by working with the federal government to deport dealers who are here illegally, most of whom are from Honduras; arrest addicts who camp and use drugs publicly and offer them rehab as an alternative to jail; and redevelop the squalid Tenderloin neighborhood, which, because of the influx of out-of-town addicts, fosters depravity and criminality affecting the entire city.

  The situation has degenerated to the point that an opportunity exists for moderates to wrest power away from progressives like Mr. Boudin and implement a sweeping, common-sense political agenda. What’s not clear is whether most San Franciscans want to do this, or could do it alone, without the involvement of California’s state government, which is sitting on a $31 billion budget surplus.

  San Francisco is an uberliberal place, and Mr. Boudin is only the latest in a long line of progressive prosecutors. In the mid-1990s voters elected Terence Hallinan, who had a history of illegal drug use and promised to stop arrests of street addicts and prostitutes. When Mr. Boudin blamed crime on inequality in 2019, his message landed on sympathetic ears. When he said he wouldn’t prosecute victimless crimes, he was singing a familiar hymn.

  It may be that Mr. Boudin went too far, even for San Francisco’s progressive voters, with his statements justifying crime and demonizing the police. But if history is any guide, they won’t have learned anything more from the experiment in lawlessness than they did from the one in the mid-1990s, and will almost certainly repeat it.

  *  *  *

  Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 21:30

• Jussie Smollett Criminal Trial Begins Monday For Alleged Hate-Crime Hoax
  Jussie Smollett Criminal Trial Begins Monday For Alleged Hate-Crime Hoax

  The criminal trial of former actor Jussie Smollett on charges that he staged a hate crime against himself is set to begin in Monday, after three years of delays into how the Chicago District Attorney handled the case.

  

  He has been charged with six counts of disorderly conduct for making false reports to the police.

  Smollett claimed that he was attacked on January 29, 2019 around 2 a.m. by two white men who shouted racist and homophobic slurs, doused him in a bleach-like liquid, hung a rope around his neck, and yelled “This is MAGA country,” before he was able to beat them off. He was seen on security footage entering his upscale apartment with an intact Subway sandwich and a noose around his neck (which he was still wearing when police arrived).

  While there was no footage of the “attack” despite Chicago’s thousands of surveillance cameras, two “persons of interest” were captured on camera who turned out to be Nigerian-born brothers Abimbola “Abel” and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo, one of whom was Jussie’s personal trainer and was an extra on Empire. 

  

  After Chicago police arrested the brothers as “potential suspects,” they were later released without charges – and investigators say their interview “shifted the trajectory of the investigation.”

  Dave Chappelle provides a recap of what went down:

  At the time, then-Senator Kamala Harris called it a “modern day lynching” (just one month after she coincidentally supported an anti-lynching bill):

  .@JussieSmollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery.

  This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.

  — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 29, 2019

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  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it a “racist and homophobic attack.”

  There is no such thing as “racially charged.”

  This attack was not “possibly” homophobic. It was a racist and homophobic attack.

  If you don’t like what is happening to our country, then work to change it. It is no one’s job to water down or sugar-coat the rise of hate crimes. https://t.co/QAi0IYtSeR

  — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 30, 2019

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  More:

  

  As the Wall Street Journal notes, the trial has been delayed several times due to events “including having the charges dropped and refiled and an investigation into how Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx handled the investigation. The Covid-19 pandemic added to the delays. A court official said the trial will begin with jury selection and could be completed within days.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 21:00

• He "Should Pay For His Crimes": ASU Students Demand Expulsion Of Kyle Rittenhouse
  He “Should Pay For His Crimes”: ASU Students Demand Expulsion Of Kyle Rittenhouse

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  President Joe Biden and media figures are not the only persons who are “angry” after a jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges. Despite a jury with the same racial makeup convicting the defendants in Georgia in the Arbery case, many have denounced the entire legal system as racist.

  It does that matter that there was evidence supporting Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense that was largely missing from prior coverage of the case. Now students and groups at Arizona State University are planning a rally and demanding that Rittenhouse be expelled. With leaders like President Biden calling Rittenhouse a “white supremacist” before any investigation was completed and legal analysts calling the entire trial “white supremacy on steroids,” there is a sense of legitimacy in demanding such extrajudicial punishments.

  

  Students groups like MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán), Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition are organizing a rally this week to “get murderer Kyle Rittenhouse off [the] campus.” 

  He is not on campus since he is enrolled as an online student.

  However, Rittenhouse has expressed interest in in-person attendance at ASU. Students and faculty are being called to the rally to “protect students from a violent, blood-thirsty murderer.”

  

  In addition, ASU student Taskina Bhuiya started a Change.org petition to denounce the verdict and to call for Rittenhouse to be “held accountable for the crimes he has committed.” Without a sense of irony, the petition declares “ASU should be a safe and inclusive place for all students, which will be disrupted if Kyle Rittenhouse is allowed to attend this school.” Inclusive unless you are an acquitted individual who must be “held accountable.” Hundreds have signed the petition insisting that “Rittenhouse should pay for his crimes.”

  The campaign reflects a growing sense that the legal system is only worthy of respect (or even protection) if it rules in the way that we demand. It is the same mentality that has led members of Congress, law professors, and others to demand the expansion or restriction of the Supreme Court because it now has a conservative majority. Liberal justices like the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer has opposed such efforts as inimical to the rule of law.

  We saw a similar campaign to block Nick Sandmann from attending Transylvania University. Various media outfits correctly false coverage of Sandmann, who was wrongly accused of racist attacks on a Native American activist. Various media companies settled with him and he is still in litigation with others. Yet, figures from an ACLU officer to a professor raised the alarm over his attending college and appearing on campus.

  The fact is that Rittenhouse cannot be expelled or kept off campus due to such mob measures. He would quickly prevail in court. However, the rally and the rhetoric magnify the risk to his safety by those who demand “accountability” regardless of any verdict.

  It will be interesting to see how many faculty step forward to defend his right to attend the college despite any misgivings over his case. Conversely, we have seen faculty members join such mob efforts, even attacking others on campus, blocking speakers, destroying political signs, or encouraging attacks on student journalists.  University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. Other faculty members have made similarly disturbing comments “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer,  strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. It is less common to hear professors today speak out for the rights of conservatives or others who are being targeted by campaigns on campus. The risk is simply too great that they will be “tagged” as intolerant, racist, or reactionary.

  Rittenhouse has every right to attend ASU in person and has every right to expect that he can do so safely. If ASU cannot muster the integrity and courage to reaffirm those rights publicly, it has abandoned a core defining element for higher education. Colleges often sit in cringing silence as individual students are targeted and harassed. Students have every right to protest, but ASU must be clear and public in supporting Rittenhouse’s right to access to an education on its campuses.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 20:30

• Beijing Capitulates: Urges Local Govts To Unleash Debt Flood As Cities Begin Backstopping Property Developers
  Beijing Capitulates: Urges Local Govts To Unleash Debt Flood As Cities Begin Backstopping Property Developers

  Despite the best efforts by South African doctors to temper the panic sparked by the emergence of the Omicron strain, it appears that western politicians and their media and “science” lackeys won’t let go so fast, and one of the potential casualties is China, which will either be forced to engage in more lockdowns, depressing the economy, or find itself engaged in far less trade with a world that is about to undergo another wave of restrictions.

  All this, of course, is happening as the recent deep freeze of China’s property market – the largest asses in the world according to Goldman Sachs…

  

  … and sparked by the repeated near-death experiences of Evergrande – has unleashed a bone-crushing shockwave across China’s economy, which takes place as Beijing continues to maintain its deleveraging stance amid Xi’s “shared prosperity” drive, which has meant far less nearly created credit is available to mask the current weakness in the economy.

  And yet, cracks are finally starting to show in Beijing’s deleveraging resolve and last week China’s State Council called on local governments to sell more special bonds this year in order to boost investment amid a slowdown in the economy.

  According to Bloomberg, Premier Li Keqiang chaired a meeting of the State Council (i.e., China’s cabinet) on Wednesday, urging local governments to have more ongoing construction of projects at the beginning of next year, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. And since they need money to fund these projects, the meeting also called on them to make better use of proceeds from special bonds to expand domestic demand.

  Said otherwise, China is once again quietly restarting the re-leveraging process, only this time instead of consumer loans, corporate bonds, or shadow debt (in the form of trusts), Beijing is targeting local government special debt issuance as the focal point of the next debt bubble.

  

  Xinhua confirmed as much, reporting that “regional governments should step up project preparation, facilitate the launch of projects that are mature, and make reasonable requests for special bond quotas next year.” And to assist this upcoming debt burst, “the authorities will study the possibility of granting some bond quotas in advance of next year, according to the report, as they did in the recent two years.”

  Meanwhile, echoing what he said at the start of the month, premier Li reiterated the economy is facing “new downward pressure” and cross-cyclical policy needs to be strengthened. This comes as economists have pared back their growth forecasts for the fourth quarter to a median of just 3.1%, while some say the economy’s pace next year could be slowest since 1990 (excluding last year’s pandemic impact), as low as 5% or even less according to some skeptics.

  Alas, there is an unexpected problem with Beijing’s plan: lack of demand for the debt. As Bloomberg notes, sales of local government special bonds have been particularly slow in the first ten months of this year, partly due to a lack of quality projects. Previously, the Ministry of Finance urged local authorities to finish issuing all the bonds within this year’s quota by November. Alas, the collapse in Evergrande, and the broader property market has taken all the wind out of China’s construction sails in 2021.

  Needless to say Beijing had to spin this unpleasant outcome, and instead the State Council meeting said that the Local governments have achieved positive results in managing debt and reducing so-called hidden debt in recent years, with the government’s overall debt-to-gross domestic product ratio trending lower.

  And while the meeting added that authorities need to step up auditing and monitoring of proceeds raised from the bond sales, China Securities Journal reported on Thursday that fiscal policy will play a bigger role in ensuring the economy has a stable start in 2022. And where will funding for said “fiscal policy” stimulus come from? Well, as Citic Securities economist Zhu Jianfeng said, while local governments’ income from land sales might fall, they should issue more special bonds to help fund investment projects.

  Then on Wednesday, the Securities Times reported that according to another Citi analyst, Cheng Qiang, regional government may issue more than 4 trillion yuan ($630 billion) worth of special bonds next year, up from the 3.65 trillion yuan budgeted for this year. Expect the final number to be much higher, especially if Omicron is indeed as dangerous as Fauci & Co. are trying to make it seem.

  Finally, a look at the latest Chinese property regulatory actions compiled by Goldman shows that over the past few weeks there have been incrementally more marginal loosening efforts at different city levels, especially in terms of mortgage rate easing and presales permit requirement/deposit withdrawal relaxation. Said otherwise, while China is not yet panicking it realizes that the deleveraging campaign is now effectively finished, and so expect much more debt creation in China next year.

  

  In short, China is about to restart its debt machine, and while all Chinese debt is of course fungible – since the state owns and controls all – this time around it will be the “local government” silo that will serve the the global growth dynamo for the coming year.

  Meanwhile, as China targets property stabilization at the macro level via local government bond sales, it is also expanding its “micro” focus and also last week, a Chinese city rolled out a series of easing measures to boost liquidity at property developers, becoming the first major local government to address a cash crunch engulfing the real estate industry.

  Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan with a population of about 21 million, will accelerate approvals for home sales and property loans as well as ease restrictions on using proceeds from pre-sales, according to a statement posted by the local housing authority last week, Bloomberg reported.

  “Chengdu is the first city authority to call for faster property-related loans in a clear official statement,” said Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute. “We may see other initiatives to press banks on faster mortgages soon.”

  The capitulation by Chengdu comes as new-home values in the city dropped 0.6% in October from a month earlier, the biggest slump in four and a half years.

  

  Here are some of Chengdu’s key measures allowing developers to boost cash:

  • The housing authority vowed to shorten the time for compulsory pre-sales procedures by at least a third
  • Developers will be able to use proceeds from pre-sales if they meet certain construction progress
  • Chengdu will work with financial institutions to increase credit quotas for developers and accelerate loan approvals
  • The city said it will coordinate with banks to extend property development loans for key developers

  The move to boost liquidity in the beleaguered building sector comes as China’s home slump deepens, adding pressure on authorities to stabilize an industry that’s estimated to account for almost a quarter of economic output.

  Separately, last week some cities relaxed rules for land sales – a key revenue source for municipalities – after cash-strapped developers became reluctant to bid, prompting the abovementioned appeal on local governments by China’s State Council to sell more special bonds to boost investment amid a slowdown in the economy.

  The bottom line is that as many had expected, regulators are finally fine-tuning their long-running crackdown on the property sector after the near implosion at Evergrande and other junk-rated developers began spreading to higher-rated peers. In late September, the central bank urged financial institutions to help local governments stabilize the rapidly cooling housing market and ease mortgages for some homebuyers. Official media reported in recent weeks that faster mortgages are already on the way.

  “It shows how the city government cares about developers’ liquidity risks,” said Pan Hao, a property analyst at KE Holdings, adding that Chengdu is looking at different measures to prevent developers’ cash risk from blowing up. And now that one city has adopted a proprety bailout strategy, expect every single other Chinese city to follow suit, the result of which will be another major can-kicking for China’s property sector at the expense of trillions in new debt, this time at the local government level.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 20:00

• Hedge Funds Suffered The Worst Week In Six Months… And That Was Before Friday
  Hedge Funds Suffered The Worst Week In Six Months… And That Was Before Friday

  While last week’s Black (or rather red) Friday’s illiquid market meltdown was one for the post-Thanksgiving ages, and the collapse for oil bulls was one of the worst daily drops in history, we expect much of the selloff to reverse in the coming hours as the narrative that (C)omicron is the second coming of the bubonic plague, is quickly played down even by the biggest propaganda agents after even the doctors that discovered the Moronic Omicron strain said it was “extremely mild” and is likely destabilized by the dozens of spike protein mutations.

  Unfortunately, the reversal of Friday’s selloff will be of little comfort to hedge funds who were already getting hammered going into the post-Thanksgiving turmoil, because according to Goldman prime, the GS Equity Fundamental L/S Performance Estimate fell -1.57% between 11/19 and 11/25, driven by alpha of -1.12% which was “the worst alpha drawdown in nearly six months” and beta of -0.45% (from market exposure and market sensitivity combined).

  

  Some more positioning details:

  • Overall book Gross leverage rose +1.0 pts to 237.6% (29th percentile one-year) while Net leverage fell -1.5 pts to 84.5% (7th percentile one-year).
  • Overall book L/S ratio fell -1.7% to 2.104 (20th percentile one-year). Fundamental L/S Gross leverage rose +0.8 pts to 178.8% (57th percentile one-year) while
  • Fundamental L/S Net leverage fell -0.5 pts to 64.5% (31st percentile one-year).

  

  In retrospect, someone may have had a correct “feeling” what was coming, because heading into the Friday puke, the GS Prime book saw the largest net selling in more than 3 months (-1.5 SDs), driven by short sales and to a much lesser extent long sales (10 to 1). As the Goldman prime desk retails, single names and macro products were both net sold and made up 54%/46% of the $ net selling.

  • On a geographic basis, managers reversed recent trends and rotated out of North America – which saw the largest net selling in 7 months – while moving into EM Asia (largest net buying since March driven by Chinese stocks) and Europe.
  • 8 of 11 sectors were net sold led in $ terms by Info Tech, Financials, and Industrials, while Staples, Materials, and Real Estate were net bought.

  

  More importantly, hedge funds bought re-opening stocks and sold stay-at-home names despite reports of a new Covid-19 variant. Constituents of Goldman’s GSXUPAND basket were collectively net bought in 3 of 4 days (11/19-11/24), while constituents of GSXUSTAY were net sold for 4 straight days amid risk-off activity.

  

  At the same time, hedge funds sold global financials stocks at the fastest pace in more than six months (perhaps as a result of the collapse in yields where yet another massive short squeeze in Treasurys has led to a plunge in rates).

  

  Still, despite the recent net selling, Financials’ weighting vs. MSCI World ended the week at the highest level in more than 8 years, driven by O/W in Capital Markets vs. U/W in Banks and Insurance.

  As usual, the full weekly note from Goldman Prime is available for our Professional subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 19:30

• Inflation Never Mattered Much For Crypto… Until About A Year Ago
  Inflation Never Mattered Much For Crypto… Until About A Year Ago

  Inflation never mattered much for crypto… until about a year ago.

  

  As UBS notes in its latest Crypto Keys note last week, forward-looking measures of US consumer prices today rank among the most prominent correlations for digital assets…

  

  …. something we first pointed out a month ago.

  

  Sensitivity to actual data prints is also mounting accordingly…

  

  … and as UBS notes, BTC, ETH and a range of more established tokens screen statistically on par with traditional instruments that are considered classic inflation winners or losers.

  

  Co-movement is weaker for newer coins like BNB as well as ADA, SOL, DOT and AVAX, which have strongly outperformed in 2021, along with meme plays like DOGE. But to UBS that seems encouraging rather than surprising when idiosyncratic factors have clearly been driving their price action.

  But while inflation clearly has be driving the top cryptocurrencies in the past year, the risk now according to UBS is that more powerful drivers will emerge to dislodge the status quo. Potential candidates could be things like stablecoin regulation, tighter exchange and account registration requirements reducing activity in CeFi and DeFi, and new restrictions on bank participation, all of which could be near-term negatives affecting market liquidity and activity but longer-term positives paving the way for institutional participation. While such things may sound crypto-specific, they mirror conditions that govern how conventional inflation hedging instruments behave. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 19:00

• Futures, Oil, Cryptos Soar As Omicron Panic Fades
  Futures, Oil, Cryptos Soar As Omicron Panic Fades

  It appears that Goldman was right again.

  As we reported yesterday, the bank’s traders (not the worthless research analysts whose output is evaluated by the pound not P&L) blasted a report to their best clients, claiming that “we can have reasonable degree of confidence that this mutation is unlikely to be more malicious and that the existing vaccines will most likely continue to be effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths. As such, while we would monitor the situation in Gauteng closely over the next month, we do not think that the new variant is sufficient reason to make major portfolio changes.” That position was bolstered overnight by two of South Africa’s top doctors (not worthless propaganda quacks like Anthony Fauci) including the one who first discovered the so-called “Omicron”, said that the latest strain was “Extremely mild” and speculated that the numerous mutations in the spike protein “destabilize” the virus.

  And at least in early Sunday night trading, after suffering their worst post-Thanksgiving plunge since 1941, futures are euphorically ramping higher, unwinding a substantial portion of the Friday puke, with Eminis trading as high as 4630 after trading as low as 4577 on Friday…

  

  … oil surging, with WTI spiking as much as 5.7% even if it clearly still has a ways to go recover its Friday losses when WTI plunged $10 as international travel restrictions were reimposed by many countries and airline stocks plummeted. And yet, as Goldman explained on Friday, even with a worst Omicron case scenario, Brent below $80 is a steal here:

  

  Meanwhile, in FX we are seeing safe havens such as the Yen and Swiss Franc slide more than 0.2%, with epicenter pairs like the ZAR surging.

  Peter Tchir, head of macro at Academy Securities Inc., said he’s watching emerging-market currency and bond markets, and Bitcoin, “as leading indicators of potentially more risky asset unwinds to come.” Well, in that case Peter should be happy because in in crypto both bitcoin…

  

  … and ethereum…

  

  … are storming higher, maybe because they are finally realizing that they live in the best of all worlds, one where new Omicron lockdowns would lead to much more money printing (bullish for cryptos which are a hedge to central bank idiocy) while the quick elimination of negative Omicron consequences would just lead to more inflation (also bullish for cryptos which have emerged as inflation hedges).

  Still, confusion remained. “We really need some more answers to figure out the impact on growth,” said Priya Misra, global head of rates strategy at TD Securities. “Risk assets are pricing in uncertainty.”

  Naturally, Moderna’s chief medical officer – sniffing out an opportunity to buy an even bigger yacht – said a reformulated shot to combat the new strain could be available early in the new year. In other words, everything that has been done so far has been for nothing, because science, and because let’s do more of what hasn’t worked to fight what is coming.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 18:51

• Biden Admin Pushes Higher Fees For Offshore, Onshore Oil & Gas Companies
  Biden Admin Pushes Higher Fees For Offshore, Onshore Oil & Gas Companies

  Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times,

  A new Department of the Interior (DOI) report on oil and gas leasing in federal lands and waters advises the DOI’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to raise royalties, rental rates, and other fees on oil and gas companies but has not moved to halt new leasing entirely.

  

  During his 2020 presidential run, President Joe Biden’s campaign website claimed that his climate plan would include “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.”

  The DOI report (pdf), issued in response to Biden’s Jan. 27 executive order, was quietly published on Black Friday after months of delays. DOI Secretary Deb Haaland claimed in March that the report would be released in “early summer.”

  Oil prices and gasoline prices have become a hot-button issue, with many blaming the Biden administration’s freeze on oil and gas leasing, shutdown of the Keystone XL pipeline, and other policies for helping to drive up those costs in recent months.

  “So, begging OPEC+ for more supply, raiding our strategic reserve to try to lower prices at the pump, and now increasing leasing fees on U.S. producers. Yep, makes perfect sense—if you’re a Democrat,” wrote Dan K. Eberhardt, CEO of Canary, on Twitter in response to the DOI report.

  In the days and weeks since the COP26 summit ended, the Biden administration has held the largest ever U.S. offshore drilling auction and released 50 million barrels of crude oil from the United States’ emergency oil stockpile, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

  The offshore auction came months after U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty ruled against the Biden administration’s pause on new oil and gas leases on public lands and waters, finding that such auctions are mandatory under federal law.

  Specifically, Doughty determined that the DOI is required to hold quarterly lease sales under both the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA) and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCLSA).

  Although the Biden administration claimed its 50 million gallon SPR release was motivated by a desire to “lower prices,” some analysts have argued that the release would not significantly impact oil prices.

  Oil prices dropped following the late November emergence of the COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, which the World Health Organization (WHO) dubbed “Omicron” on Nov. 26.

  The DOI report claimed the U.S. oil and gas leasing program “fails to provide a fair return to taxpayers, even before factoring in the resulting climate-related costs that must be borne by taxpayers.”

  In addition to recommending higher onshore and offshore drilling fees, new screening procedures for bidders, and a “Fitness to Operate” standard for prospective offshore operators, the report states that the DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) would “study the most appropriate method” to develop and apply pricing for methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide for offshore operators.

  The new report has already met with criticism from the oil and gas industry.

  “During one of the busiest travel weeks of the year when rising costs of energy are even more apparent to Americans, the Biden administration is sending mixed signals. Days after a public speech in which the White House said the president ‘is using every tool available to him to work to lower prices and address the lack of supply,’ his Interior Department proposed to increase costs on American energy development with no clear roadmap for the future,” said Frank Macchiarola of the American Petroleum Institute (API), a key oil and gas trade association, in a statement.

  The report prompted a mixed response from the Sierra Club, which endorsed Biden during his 2020 presidential campaign.

  “We applaud the Biden administration for recognizing the serious flaws in the current oil and gas leasing program and making long-overdue reforms. But to truly tackle the climate crisis, we need to phase out all new leasing for fossil fuels on public lands and offshore—activities that contribute to nearly a quarter of this country’s greenhouse gas emissions,” said Sierra Club Lands Protection Program Director Athan Manuel.

  Colin Rees, U.S. program manager for Oil Change International, went further in a statement from that group.

  “President Biden promised to end the leasing program entirely due to its deadly threat to the climate. Interior’s recommendations fall far short of that goal and ring particularly hollow days after the largest lease sale in U.S. history,” he said.

  “Secretary Haaland and President Biden must end all federal leasing and permits for oil and gas extraction. Anything less is unacceptable and a damning failure of their climate promises and responsibility to future generations,” he added.

  Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee, also denounced the report.

  “After keeping the entire energy industry in limbo for months, DOI’s report shows they have only just begun their war on safe, reliable, domestic energy,” said Westerman in a statement.

  “They will bog small energy companies down in years of regulatory gridlock, place millions of acres of resources-rich land under lock and key, ignore local input, and sell out to overseas suppliers. Ultimately, the American consumer will pay the price,” he added.

  Westerman’s remarks were echoed by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

  “Shutting down energy production on federal lands will not fix climate change. It will just push production off federal lands, including to countries that have lower environmental standards than the United States,” Barrasso said in a statement.

  “Now we know why the Biden Administration quietly dropped their ‘Bleak Friday’ Oil and Gas Leasing Report the day after Thanksgiving. It spells higher gas prices for hardworking families—while Biden bows to OPEC instead of producing cleaner, lower-cost American energy right here,” wrote House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Twitter.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 18:30

• Security Guard For TV News Crew Killed While Covering Organized Looting In Oakland
  Security Guard For TV News Crew Killed While Covering Organized Looting In Oakland

  A security guard protecting a San Francisco Bay Area news crew has died after being shot in the abdomen during an attempted robbery near downtown Oakland on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

  

  Former police officer-turned armed guard Kevin Nishita was protecting the KRON-TV news crew while they reported on a smash-and-grab theft related to a spate of organized retail crime in the area, when a group of thugs attempted to steal their equipment.

  The KRON-TV crew was covering the late Monday night burglary of Prime 356, where about 30 people wearing black clothing and latex gloves broke in and snatched clothing from the shelves. –AP

  A reward of $32,500 has been offered for information leading to the arrest of Nishita’s killer.

  “This senseless loss of life is due to yet another violent criminal act in the Bay Area. We hope that offering a reward will help lead to the arrest of those responsible so they can face justice for this terrible tragedy,” said KRON-TV’s vice president and general manager, Jim Rose in a Saturday statement. “Our deepest sympathy goes to Kevin’s wife, his children, his family, and to all his friends and colleagues.”

  We mourn the loss of retired police officer Kevin Nishita who honorably served our Bay Area Community. He was protecting/guarding a local news crew when he was senselessly murdered. Today, we escorted his body from the hospital with full law enforcement honors. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/ZbKRn7J732

  — Alameda County Sheriff (@ACSOSheriffs) November 27, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  There have been several organized lootings across California and other states, as two Nordstrom stores were looted for more than $25,000 in high-end goods just days after a Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco was hit.

  #Breaking About 25 cars just blocked the street and rushed into the Walnut Creek Nordstrom making off with goods before getting in cars snd speeding away. At least two people arrested at gunpoint. pic.twitter.com/AG3R94M9L3

  — Jodi Hernandez (@JodiHernandezTV) November 21, 2021

  The thefts are believed to be part of ‘sophisticated criminal networks’ that recruit looters and then sell the merchandise they make off with, according to AP.

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 18:00

• Hillary: "Americans Just Don't Appreciate What Joe Has Done For Them"
  Hillary: “Americans Just Don’t Appreciate What Joe Has Done For Them”

  Via 21stCenturyWire.com,

  This might be the longest-ever Thanksgiving weekend for Joe Biden. While he’s been enjoying a warm blanket and a hot cup of Ovaltine with his family in Nantucket, the President’s poll numbers have been in virtual free-fall. It seems that the nation is fast losing confidence in his ability to handle important issues like the economy, the border, foreign policy and crime running wild on America’s streets. In short, the majority of Americans, both Democrat and Republican, do not believe Joe is capable of fulfilling his duties as the chief executive of the world’s premier superpower.

  At present, Biden’s average job approval rating stands at around 40%, a steep drop from the 55% percent average approval rating he enjoyed last May.

  

  No one really knows just how low Joe will go.

  Still, this hasn’t stopped his ardent allies from rushing to his defense, and blaming his flagging numbers on social media trolls (see deplorables).

  Carlos Garcia from The Blaze writes…

  Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tried to explain away President Joe Biden’s poor polling by accusing Americans of not appreciating what Biden has done for them, and blamed social media.

  Clinton made the comments while a guest on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show Tuesday evening.

  “You know, democracy is messy. You know, a lot of people got, oh I think, kind of frustrated looking at the messy process of legislation,” said Clinton.

  “And they didn’t really appreciate that, within a year, the Biden administration has passed two major pieces of legislation through both the House and the Senate, they passed another major piece through the House that will be soon be in the Senate,” she continued.

  

  “By any measure those are extraordinary accomplishments and they really will help many millions of Americans with healthcare and prescription drug prices, as well as climate change and so much else,” said Clinton.

  “But because of the way we are getting our information today,” she concluded, “and because of the lack of gatekeepers and people who have a historic perspective who can help us understand what we are seeing, there is a real vulnerability in the electorate to the kind of demagoguery and disinformation that, unfortunately, the other side is really good at exploiting.”

  Both Maddow and Clinton accused Republicans of undermining the results of fair elections and calling for violence as a political solution in the interview.

  Biden’s poll numbers have suffered greatly after a cascade of damaging incidents plaguing his administration. Among the worst were the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, the painful cost of high inflation, and the crisis of illegal immigration at the border.

  One poll from October found that only 38% of Americans thought Biden deserved a positive job rating.

  Watch Hillary’s clip here: 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 17:30

• Suspect Arrested In Philadelphia's Record 500th Homicide This Year
  Suspect Arrested In Philadelphia’s Record 500th Homicide This Year

  Just hours ago we wrote about how Philadelphia had tied its all time homicide record after a shooting that occurred in broad daylight in South Philadelphia.

  A person of interest has now been arrested over what was the city’s 500th homicide of the year.

  The victim’s estranged husband is believed to be behind the attack, Philly Voice reported this weekend. We noted days ago that the shooter had been caught casually walking away from the crime scene on surveillance video. 

  The couple broke up about two weeks ago and the victim, 55 year old Eloise Harmon, was known as “an engaged community member and activist who worked to keep her block free of drugs and violence as far back as the nineties”.

  

  The suspect was taken into custody on Friday, the report says, after he barricaded himself into a home on the 500 block of North Gross Street in West Philadelphia. 

  The murder occurred at 7th and Jackson streets in South Philadelphia at 4:30pm on Wednesday. With more than a month to go in the year, Philadelphia’s homicide total is now even with the record it set in 1990 amidst a massive crack cocaine epidemic in the city, Philly Voice reported.

  Mayor Jim Kenney spoke out about gun violence the day before the murder, stating: “We continue to act with urgency to reduce violence and save lives.” 

  Kenney has been pushing for state lawmakers to pass more gun laws and allow him more power to introduce new gun laws in Philadelphia. 

  Philadelphia Police Department Commissioner Danielle Outlaw commented: “We remain committed to proactively patrolling neighborhoods and encourage community members to continue to work alongside the police.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 17:05

• Free Trades – A World Without Payment-For-Order-Flow
  Free Trades – A World Without Payment-For-Order-Flow

  Authored by Marc Rubinstein via ‘Net Interest’,

  Anyone who’s seen the Apple TV show Ted Lasso will be well versed in the differences between American and British behaviours. Tea and biscuits, football draws, the underhand nature of the British press – it’s all in there.

  One thing that’s not in there, though, is financial services. Which is a shame because there are lots of differences between financial practices in the US and the UK. One of them is the role of payment for order flow in retail stock trading. Payment for order flow underpins the business model of Robinhood, an American company named after a British legend. Yet in the UK, it is banned. If Ted were to pull out his phone to buy some UK-listed shares, the way his order is routed to the market would be very different to anything he may be used to back home. 

  

  It’s a topic worth exploring because European regulators are in the process of banning payment for order flow too and US regulators may very well follow. Against this backdrop, new business models are emerging.

  What is Payment for Order Flow?

  Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) is a fee that a broker receives in return for routing trades to specific exchanges or dealers for execution. Hit confirm on the purchase of a few shares of Citigroup in your trading app [this is not investment advice] and rather than sending it to the stock exchange to be executed, your broker will typically send it to a wholesale market maker.

  There are about eight of these market makers active in the US. The largest is Citadel Securities, then there’s Virtu, G1 Execution, Goldman Sachs, Jane Street, Two Sigma Securities, UBS Securities and Wolverine. Their pitch is that they can deliver a better price for the end customer than if the trade was routed direct to an exchange. That’s because as well as trafficking between exchanges, these market makers tap into so-called dark pools of liquidity. And increasingly, that’s where the action is. These days, more shares can be executed in private, dark venues than on public exchanges. In the case of some stocks, where retail participation is high, 60-70% of trading can occur in the dark.

  One such dark venue is the market maker’s own balance sheet. Given their scale, market makers are often able to match up trades from within their flow. There are around 200 retail brokers in the US but once their orders are aggregated among the eight wholesalers, there is ample opportunity for matching. Retail orders tend to be small, dispersed and uninformed, so the chances that a Citigroup sell order comes in on the same day as a Citigroup buy order are quite high. Virtu, one of the largest market makers, reckons that around 60% of the retail volume it handles is dealt with internally. 

  The advantage for the customer is a better price. Brokers are required to offer the best available price, but only with reference to what’s posted on public exchanges. For Citigroup, that price may be $67.20 to sell or $67.40 to buy. Scour these dark pools and better prices emerge. If the market maker itself can execute the trade at $67.25 for the seller and $67.35 for the buyer, both are better off and there’s still something left in the middle for the market maker.

  In aggregate, market makers reckon they delivered $3.6 billion of price improvement to retail investors last year. Virtu argues that if you adjust for order size, price improvement is even higher and on that metric they alone delivered $3 billion of improvement. 

  In order to attract flow, market makers offer payments. This is where the payment for order flow comes in. Some brokers – Fidelity, for example – don’t take it, but many do. In particular, several have crafted a business model around it, using payment for order flow to subsidise the cost of trades. Over the full year 2020, Robinhood earned $691 million in payments for order flow, representing 72% of its total revenue. 

  Payment for order flow allows the broker to share in any value captured by channeling orders through wholesalers, along with the wholesaler and the end customer (through price improvement). Bloomberg estimates that for every $100 of value captured, around $49 stays with the wholesaler, $13 goes to the broker and $38 ends up with the customer.

  

  Neat as all this sounds, it is highly controversial. There’s a reason they don’t allow it in the UK (or Canada). The issue is the potential conflict of interest it presents. The European Securities and Markets Authority sounds the alarm: “PFOF causes a clear conflict of interest between the firm and its clients, because it incentivises the firm to choose the third party offering the highest payment, rather than the best possible outcome for its clients when executing their orders.”

  Such conflicts were exposed at Robinhood last December, leading to the firm being fined $65 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) discovered that Robinhood had locked in unusually high payment for order flow rates but wasn’t getting much price improvement on customer orders. According to the SEC, inferior trade prices deprived customers of $34.1 million in the 30 months up to June 2019, even after taking into account the savings from not paying a commission.    

  The controversy around payment for order flow is nothing new, it’s just that entire business models have been built while it’s been simmering. Twenty years ago, Bernie Madoff defended the practice – not someone you really want fighting your corner.

  “No one tells a firm how they can advertise. If I want to hire salesmen to generate order flow, no one is going to object. I don’t have them. So if I want to use Fidelity’s salesmen and pay part of my trading profits in the form of a rebate, why shouldn’t I be allowed to do it? It was characterized as this bribe and kickback and something sinister, which was very easy to do. But if your girlfriend goes to buy stockings at a supermarket, the racks that display those stockings are usually paid for by the company that manufactured the stockings. Order flow is an issue that attracted a lot of attention but is grossly overrated.”

  In the UK, financial regulators classified payment for order flow as an inducement at odds with best execution back in 2012 and banned it just as it was beginning to take off. A study has since shown that the ban did not have a detrimental effect on pricing, with customers benefiting from a more competitive market for retail orders. 

  This week, Europe has followed suit. The European Commission updated a broad set of rules around capital markets, including amendments “to stop the controversial practice of trading operators offering incentives to brokers for directing client orders to them, regardless of whether or not doing so is in their clients’ best interests (‘payment for order flows’).”

  For new brokers like Trade Republic in Germany – valued in a recent funding round at $5 billion – this is potentially very damaging. Payment for order flow accounts for around half their revenue. Another broker, flatexDEGIRO has disclosed that payment for order flow makes up only 3% of its revenues, leaving it better placed. 

  Nowhere is payment for order flow more embedded though than in the US. Yet here, too, there are rumblings that it may be banned. The newly appointed Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission has put a full ban “on the table.” Interviewed by my close namesake David Rubenstein recently, he added:

  “You’re supposed to get best execution out of your broker and is that happening when…a few wholesalers are buying the order flow and a lot of that’s getting concentrated around a few wholesalers?”

  A World Without Payment for Order Flow

  A ban on payment for order flow would leave brokers with two choices:

  They could reverse into the market making business themselves. Historically, retail brokers including E*Trade, Charles Schwab and Interactive Brokers did operate such businesses. But the rise of electronic and high frequency trading narrowed bid/offer spreads, convincing them to sell to scale providers. Charles Schwab sold its execution services business to UBS in 2004, E*Trade sold to Susquehanna in early 2014, and Interactive Brokers sold to Two Sigma in 2017.

  When it sold to Susquehanna, E*Trade argued it wouldn’t suffer a decline in profit because new sources of payment for order flow would offset lost trading profits. Payment for order flow is a higher margin activity than market making, so E*Trade may have been right at the profit level. But on the revenue line, the firm did lose out. In the three years prior to the sale, E*Trade earned an average of $90 million a year from trading, of which around 60% was internal flows; payment for order flow increased by only around $30 million a year subsequent to the sale.

  

  Source: E*Trade financial reports

  If payment for order flow disappears, a reverse back into trading could make sense for E*Trade, especially now it has access to a better trading platform as part of Morgan Stanley (which bought it in 2020). More broadly, larger brokers have a particular advantage at being able to internalise trades. Robinhood alone does more retail equity trading than any market maker outside the big two (Citadel Securities and Virtu). 

  A second option is to seek out alternative revenue sources. This is where the UK experience comes in. In 2016, a new broker was founded in the UK, Freetrade. The firm set out to offer Robinhood-style trading without recourse to payment for order flow: “We do not receive financial or non-financial benefit from any trade execution venues or counterparties in return for sending our customers’ orders to them (sometimes known as ‘payment for order flow’).”

  Freetrade now has around 600,000 funded accounts in the UK, of which 475,000 have been active in the last thirty days. In the third quarter of this year, it processed 2.6 million trades. Like Robinhood, it has an engaged user base with a similar average age (34). Unlike Robinhood, it has used that customer base to fund its growth. Following an original crowdfunding raise in 2016 (for £170,000), the company has launched seven further rounds. This week, Freetrade launched its latest round, valuing the company at £650 million. Within a few hours, the company raised £3.7 million from existing investors and a further £1.3 million from others who signed up for early access. After four hours, the company had raised £8 million from over 6,000 investors.

  Unusually, Freetrade sometimes offers investors secondary trading opportunities, allowing them to lock in profits. How much of that gets recycled back into the platform though is unknown. The company has over £1 billion in assets on its platform, the two largest cohorts being the pre-Dec 2019 cohort and the first quarter 2021 cohort. 

  

  Freetrade funding rounds

  So how does Freetrade make money? 

  Here’s how the company puts it:

  

  I’m not too sure how optimising costs enables free investing, but looking beyond that, Freetrade makes money from subscriptions with upside from FX and interest income. 

  In 2020, the company made £3 million revenue. For 2021, they are forecasting £15 million, less than original projections because of a slower rollout into Europe. Leaving 2021, they are doing £2 million in revenue a month, so that’s around £40 per funded account on an annualised basis. The projection for 2022 is £50 million of revenue. Gross margins are around 90% but staff and overhead costs are expected to continue to consume revenues until 2023. 

  The core subscription model creates an alignment with customers – Freetrade isn’t incentivised to get them to trade more. Which is a good thing! Its customers trade an average 17x per year compared with Robinhood’s 25x (in equities) as at the third quarter. It’s also a more resilient model – revenues won’t collapse with trading velocity, although they are subject to churn. With higher interest rates, Freetrade will be able to secure a larger stream of interest income on uninvested cash.

  Freetrade remains very small next to the giants in the industry like Robinhood. But it’s an interesting model to watch, particularly as payment for order flow comes under pressure. The model may be foreign to Ted Lasso but, as Rebecca tells him, “every disadvantage has its advantage.”

  *  *  *

  This is a free version of Net Interest, my newsletter on financial sector themes. For additional content and supplementary features, please consider signing up as a paid subscriber.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 16:40

• Black Friday Shopping Down 28% Over 2019 Levels Despite Improvement Over Last Year
  Black Friday Shopping Down 28% Over 2019 Levels Despite Improvement Over Last Year

  The good news: Black Friday retail traffic was up 47.5% over last year. The bad news: It was still 28.3% lower vs. 2019 levels, according to CNBC, citing preliminary data from Sensormatic Solutions.

  

  “It’s clear shoppers are shopping earlier this season, just as they did last season,” according to Sensormatic senior director of global retail consulting, Brian Field, who added that two primary reasons shoppers are concerned about the supply chain and Covid.

  The peak time for Black Friday shopping in stores was 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., similar to trends in past years, Sensormatic said. Black Friday is still predicted to be the busiest in-store shopping day of the season, according to Sensormatic.

  On Thanksgiving day, visits to brick-and-mortar stores cratered 90.4% from 2019 levels, Sensormatic found. Retailers including Target, Walmart and Best Buy opted to keep their doors closed to customers on the holiday. Target has said it will be a permanent shift. -CNBC

  According to Field, shopping picked up the most in the Southern US, followed by the Midwest, West and Northeast.

  “If you start seeing outbreaks in the U.S., the thing that I think would drive [traffic down] would be if governments and communities start locking down again,” he said. “Otherwise, I think the trends will be very similar to what we expect them to be.”

  Online spending fell from 2020 levels, meanwhile, with e-retailers ringing up $8.9 billion in Black Friday sales – down from $9 billion last year, according to Adobe Analytics, which noted that this is the first year that growth reversed from the prior year as long as records have been kept. The company analyzes over 100 million items in 18 product categories spanning 1 trillion visits to US retail sites.

  Thanksgiving day online sales were flat from one year ago at $5.1billion, according to Adobe.

  The numbers provide even greater evidence that the holiday season has been stretched out as more Americans began their shopping as early as October. Retailers have been spreading out their promotional offers, too. According to a survey from the National Retail Federation, the retail industry’s leading trade group, 61% of consumers had already started purchasing holiday gifts before Thanksgiving. -CNBC

  “Shoppers are being strategic in their gift shopping, buying much earlier in the season and being flexible about when they shop to make sure they get the best deals,” said Adobe lead analyst, Vivek Pandya.

  The company forecasts Cyber Monday sales to be between $10.2 billion and $11.3 billion.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 16:15

• LAPD Targets "Follow-Home" Robbery Crime Wave
  LAPD Targets “Follow-Home” Robbery Crime Wave

  Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

  Police are ramping up efforts to crush an escalating wave of violent crime in the Los Angeles area targeting popular shopping districts, wealthy residents, and celebrities.

  

  A spate of “follow-home” robbers turned deadly this week, resulting in the murder of a 23-year-old man outside of a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard Nov. 23.

  The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) responded to the homicide by announcing the formation of a “Follow Home Task Force.” The county sheriff also declared his intention to do what it took to stop the growing trend.

  Violent crimes are on the rise in Los Angeles. Area law enforcement reported an increase of nearly 4 percent since 2019, according to the latest law enforcement numbers released in October.

  Police Chief Michel Moore said gang violence was an underlying influence.

  The department had identified 133 robberies connected to the trend of suspects following victims home from Melrose Avenue, the Jewelry District, and high-end restaurants and nightclubs, Moore said this week.

  “The victims were being targeted based on the high-end jewelry they were wearing or the high-end car they were driving,” the LAPD said in a Nov. 24 release.

  Last week, the LAPD reported that six gangs were involved in the violent “follow-home robberies” spree.

  “When we look at the underlying influences of that street violence … Those involved with gangs continue to be the highest area of concentration,” Moore told NBC Los Angeles in June.

  Los Angeles, nicknamed the “Gang Capital of America,” has about 450 active gangs operating in the county, the LAPD reported in September.

  Street gangs were involved in a 37 percent increase in murders by June, Moore told reporters, adding that he believed the overall spikes in killings and shootings were related to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

  The city has seen a 49 percent increase in homicides, recording 325 in the first 10 months this year, and a 16 percent jump in aggravated assaults.

  The number of people shot climbed to 1,203 by Oct. 23—a 50 percent jump since 2019—according to the report. The number of shooting victims was about 122 a month from August through October.

  Criminals have also targeted vehicles, resulting in a dramatic rise of 50 percent in auto thefts this year.

  During that same time, law enforcement recorded a 28 percent decrease in arrests, with arrests for violent crimes dropping nearly 9 percent in the Los Angeles area.

  The LAPD reported making 16 percent fewer traffic stops and almost 2 percent, or 770, fewer arrests this year, compared to last year. Officers made 34 percent fewer stops this year and 31 percent fewer arrests than five years ago.

  The apparent gang-related robberies follow a trend—dubbed as “burglary tourism” by the police—involving Chilean gangs identified last year.

  In 2020, law enforcement alerted the public about gangs of Chilean nationals using visa waivers to come to the U.S. for the purpose of burglarizing homes, businesses, and vehicles.

  In February, five Chilean men were arrested in connection to a burglary spree that targeted trailheads and dog parks throughout Thousand Oaks.

  ‘Follow-Home’ Robberies in US and UK

  Similar “follow-home” robberies and crimes targeting celebrities or wealthy residents have also occurred in San Francisco, New York, Houston, and the United Kingdom.

  In July, a couple was followed to their San Francisco home and robbed by a man with a semi-automatic rifle. The suspect rear-ended the couple’s car while they drove home from a mall.

  In April, a San Francisco woman also reported being followed home from Richmond to Sunset and attacked for her handbag and jewelry, and a father was held at gunpoint outside his Concord home after being followed home from lunch in Walnut Creek, according to news reports.

  County, State to Join Efforts Targeting Criminals

  Los Angeles County and state officials said this week they intended to increase efforts to curtail the crime wave.

  The county sheriff Alex Villanueva also said his department would take steps to stop the recent rash of violence.

  “This is completely unacceptable,” Villanueva wrote in a social media post Nov. 23.

  “As long as I am your Sheriff, we will do what it takes to stop this growing trend of lawlessness. This is what happens when you defund the police.”

  Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he planned to send a budget proposal to lawmakers in January that contained “an exponential increase of support” to help cities and counties fight organized retail theft and “other quality of life issues.”

  Decrease in Police Presence

  Law enforcement responded quickly at first to the uptick in shootings and robberies in the Melrose Avenue area this year by increasing foot and horse patrols, but that has diminished.

  The lack of police presence this week concerned some residents and businesses on the avenue after recent robberies.

  One longtime resident said police presence in the area was needed to keep crime under control.

  “I think it’s very vital to have a constant police presence,” said Ron Ashford, 73, a 30-year resident of the adjacent Fairfax District.

  He said he was concerned when the patrols slowed down recently, reflecting on the situation Wednesday as he sat at a table on the sidewalk on Melrose Avenue.

  He has seen crime increase in the area, and “It wasn’t this bad years ago,” he said.

  Ashford said he is concerned crime will escalate if police retreat from the area.

  “I said, watch, when it dies down, [the criminals] will come back,” Ashford said.

  On July 19, three suspects attempted to rob victims at gunpoint in the parking lot of Media Wine and Spirits.

  One of the victims used his own firearm to shoot at the suspects, apparently hitting two of them, according to the LAPD. Two of the suspects were arrested.

  The incident was just one of several violent crimes along Melrose Avenue this year.

  In September, outdoor diners were held at gunpoint at La Crème Café and robbed of property. The next day, an employee at the Oldboy Barbershop was also robbed. And in August, a Shoe Palace employee was shot and killed during a shoe raffle.

  On Nov. 13, victims were returning home to a short-term rental on North Gardner Street, about a block from Melrose Avenue. They were followed home and robbed at gunpoint by eight suspects after returning from a nightclub.

  Media Wine and Spirits owner Askkar said the shooting at his store parking lot was an isolated event.

  His customers were doing well and life has returned to “normal” along the avenue after an increase in police presence, he said.

  “There is no threat,” Askar told the Epoch Times. “Everything is cool. We’re good and everything is safe.”

  Some shops are taking precautions, posting private security outside, or changing the way they operate.

  The Spitfire Girl clothing store has stopped allowing female employees to close by themselves after the crimes, a store clerk told the Epoch Times.

  “Oftentimes, people are making us feel uncomfortable,” associate Sean Ghedi said.

  A store employee who watches the open door to Cookies & Kicks, a shoe store on Melrose Avenue, said he was working when shots were fired during the robbery at Media Wine and Spirits.

  Their store hasn’t had any problems, the employee who asked to remain anonymous told the Epoch Times.

  “This is the nicer part of LA, but it’s still LA at the end of the day,” the employee said.

  Celebrities, Wealthy Residents Targeted

  Celebrity Dorit Kemsley of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” reported Oct. 27 she was followed to her Encino home by two men wearing masks. A home video showed the men smashing sliding glass doors to gain entry before taking as much as $1 million in valuables.

  Former BET host “Terrence J” Jenkins was followed to his Sherman Oaks home at about 3 a.m. Nov. 10 by four masked men in a silver Jeep Cherokee, police reported. One of them ordered him out of his car, but he and a passenger drove away, instead, and were followed by the suspects. Shots were fired, but no one was injured, according to reports.

  Actor and comedian Jeremy Piven reported a burglary at his home in the Hollywood Hills in October when $20,000 worth of clothing was stolen, he said.

  Singer Rihanna’s Los Angeles home was also targeted in July when a man reportedly jumped one of her walls in an attempt to break into her house, police reported.

  Residents Increase Private Security

  Onguard Inc., a security guard service that serves southern California, has received several requests for service from businesses and residents after the recent “follow-home robberies.”

  “There has been an increase in calls and an increase in clients reaching out to us,” Onguard Inc. CEO Ray Nomair told the Epoch Times.

  One couple requested 24-hour security guards posted in their driveway at their Beverly Hills home until February. Another client asked for private protection while her husband was traveling, he said.

  The clients are afraid of trespassers breaking in and stealing property, he said.

  The Ring cameras that residents install themselves to monitor their properties are not enough in these cases, Nomair said.

  Police: Residents Not Wear Expensive Jewelry, Clothing

  The LAPD issued a list of recommendations for area residents to help avoid the “follow home robberies.”

  Police suggested residents should not wear expensive jewelry or other “high-value” property and to be aware of their surroundings when walking out of a restaurant or other place of business.

  “There’s no item of jewelry or piece of property that they have that is worth their life, and so if they find themselves in such a perilous situation, to cooperate, be a good witness. … Do not chase people, do not try to pursue people, and do not try to take actions yourself other than to minimize the chance that you become a victim of the type of violence we saw this morning,” Moore told reporters.

  The LAPD recommended that if drivers noticed they were being followed, they should not drive home and instead go to a police station and call 911.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/28/2021 – 15:50